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+Project Gutenberg's The Love Affairs of an Old Maid, by Lilian Bell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Love Affairs of an Old Maid
+
+Author: Lilian Bell
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #22047]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Anne Storer, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+     The original text noted chapters as 1, 2, 3 etc. in the TOC,
+   and I, II, III etc. in chapter headers. These have been retained.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                 THE
+
+                      LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID
+
+                                  BY
+                              LILIAN BELL
+
+
+        "_Some ships reach happy ports that are not steered_"
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                     HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+
+
+               Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+                         _All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+This book is dedicated very fondly to my beloved family, who, in their
+anxiety to render me material assistance, have offered me such diverse
+opinions as to its merit that their criticisms radiate from me in as many
+directions as there are spokes to a wheel.
+
+This leaves the distraught hub with no opinion of its own, and with
+flaring, ragged edges.
+
+Nevertheless, thus must it appear before the public, whose opinion will be
+the tire which shall enable my wheel to revolve. If it be favorable, one
+may look for smooth riding; if unfavorable, one must expect jolts.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+It is a pity that there is no prettier term to bestow upon a girl bachelor
+of any age than Old Maid. "Spinster" is equally uncomfortable, suggesting,
+as it does, corkscrew curls and immoderate attenuation of frame; while
+"maiden lady," which the ultra-punctilious substitute, is entirely too
+mincing for sensible, whole-souled people to countenance.
+
+I dare say that more women would have the courage to remain unmarried were
+there so euphonious a title awaiting them as that of "bachelor," which,
+when shorn of its accompanying adjective "old," simply means unmarried.
+
+The word "bachelor," too, has somewhat of a jaunty sound, implying to the
+sensitive ear that its owner could have been married--oh, several times
+over--if he had wished. But both "spinster" and "old maid" have narrow,
+restricted attributes, which, to say the least, imply doubt as to past
+opportunity.
+
+Names are covertly responsible for many overt acts. Carlyle, when he said,
+"The name is the earliest garment you wrap around the earth-visiting me.
+Names? Not only all common speech, but Science, Poetry itself, if thou
+consider it, is no other than a right naming," sounded a wonderful note in
+Moral Philosophy, which rings false many a time in real life, when to ring
+true would change the whole face of affairs.
+
+Thus I boldly affirm, that were there a proper sounding title to cover the
+class of unmarried women, many a marriage which now takes place, with
+either moderate success or distinct failure, would remain in pleasing
+embryo.
+
+Of the three evils among names for my book, therefore, I leave you to
+determine whether I have chosen the greatest or least. The writing of it
+came about in this way.
+
+In a conversation concerning modern marriage, the unwisdom people display
+in choice, and the complicated affair it has come to be from a pastoral
+beginning, I said lightly, "I shall write a book upon this subject some
+fine day, and I shall call it 'The Love Affairs of an Old Maid,' because
+popular prejudice decrees that the love affairs of an old maid necessarily
+are those of other people."
+
+No sooner had the name suggested in broad jest taken form in my mind than
+straightway every thought I possessed crystallized around it, and I found
+myself impelled by a malevolent Fate to begin it.
+
+It became a fixed intention on a Sunday morning in church during a most
+excellent sermon, the text and substance of which I have forgotten.
+Doubtless more of real worth and benefit to mankind was pent up in that
+sermon than four books of my own writing could accomplish. But, with the
+delightful candor of John Kendrick Bangs, I explain my lapse of memory
+thus--
+
+    "I dote on Milton and on Robert Burns;
+       I love old Marryat--his tales of pelf;
+     I live on Byron; but my heart most yearns
+       Towards those sweet things that I've penned myself."
+
+So the book has been written. The existence of the Old Maid often has been
+a precarious one; she has been surrounded by danger, once narrowly
+escaping cremation. But my humanity towards dumb brutes saved her. I might
+have sacrificed a woman, but I could not kill a cat. So she lives,
+unconsciously owing her life to her cat.
+
+Thus she comes to you, bearing her friends in her heart. I should scarcely
+dare ask you to welcome her, did I not suspect that her friends are yours.
+You have your Flossy and your Charlie Hardy without doubt. Pray Heaven you
+have a Rachel to outweigh them.
+
+CHICAGO, _March, 1893_.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+
+   1. I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF                          1
+
+   2. I COME INTO MY KINGDOM                            8
+
+   3. MATRIMONY IN HARNESS                             18
+
+   4. WOMEN AS LOVERS                                  30
+
+   5. THE HEART OF A COQUETTE                          51
+
+   6. THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD           65
+
+   7. A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE                           78
+
+   8. A GAME OF HEARTS                                 91
+
+   9. THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND                   120
+
+  10. THE PATHOS OF FAITH                             137
+
+  11. THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE                       156
+
+  12. IN WHICH I WILLINGLY TURN MY FACE WESTWARD      174
+
+
+
+
+                    THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF ON OLD MAID
+
+
+                           *       *       *
+
+                                   I
+
+                        I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF
+
+                "There is a luxury in self-dispraise;
+                 And inward self-disparagement affords
+                 To meditative spleen a grateful feast."
+
+
+To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. What a trying thing to have to say even
+to one's self, and how vexed I should be if anybody else said it to me!
+Nevertheless, it is a comfort to be brutally honest once in a while to
+myself. I do not dare, I do not care, to be so to everybody. But with my
+own self, I can feel that it is strictly a family affair. If I hurt my
+feelings, I can grieve over it until I apologize. If I flatter myself, I
+am only doing what every other woman in the world is doing in her
+innermost consciousness, and flattery as honest as flattery from one's
+own self naturally would be could not fail to please me. Besides, it would
+have the unique value of being believed by both sides--a situation in the
+flattery line which I fancy has no rival.
+
+It is well to become acquainted with one's self at all hazards, and as I
+am going to be my own partner in the rubber of life, I can do nothing
+better than to study my own hand. So, to harrow up my feelings as only I
+dare to do, I write down that it is really true of me that I passed the
+first corner five years ago, and to-morrow I shall be 30.
+
+What a disagreeable figure a 3 is; I never noticed it before. It looks so
+self-satisfied. And as to that fat, hollow 0 which follows it--I always
+did detest round numbers.
+
+30; there it goes again. I must accustom myself to it privately, so I
+write it down once more, and it laughs in my face and mocks me. Then I
+laugh back at it and say aloud that it is true, and for the time being I
+have cowed it and become its master. What boots it if the laughter is a
+trifle hollow? There is no harm in deceiving two miserable little figures.
+
+Let me revel in my youth while I may. To-night I am a gay young thing of
+twenty-nine. To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. I have very little time
+left in which to make myself ridiculous and have it excused on account of
+my youth. But somehow I do not feel very gay. I have a curious feeling
+about my heart, as if I were at a burial--one where I was burying
+something that I had always loved very dearly, but secretly, and which
+would always be a sweet and tender memory with me. I feel nervous, too,
+quite as if I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I remember that
+Alice Asbury said she was hysterical just before she was married. I wonder
+if a woman's feelings on the eve of being an Old Maid are unlike those of
+one about to become a bride.
+
+My cat sits eying me with sleepy approval. I always liked cats. And tea.
+Why have I never thought of it before? It is not my fault that I am an Old
+Maid. I was cut out for one. All my tendencies point that way. Please
+don't blame me, good people. Come here, Tabby. You and Missis will grow
+old together.
+
+After all, it is a sad thing when one realizes for the first time that
+one's youth is slipping away. But why? Why do women of great intelligence,
+of intellect even, blush with pleasure at the implication of youth?
+
+There are fashions in thought as well as in dress, and the best of us
+follow both, as sheep follow their leader. We will sometimes follow our
+neighbor's line of insular prejudice, when worlds could not bribe us to
+copy her grammar or her gowns. Dull people admire youth. They excuse its
+follies; they adore its prettiness. That it is only a period of education,
+and that real life begins with maturity, does not enter into their minds.
+The odor of bread and butter does not nauseate them. Dull people, I
+say--and God pity us, most of us are dull--admire youth. Men love it.
+Therefore we all want to be young. We strive to be young, nay, we _will_
+be young.
+
+I am no better than my neighbors. I, too, am young when I am with people.
+But there are times when I am alone when the strain of being young
+relaxes, and I luxuriate in being old, old, old, when I cease being
+contemporary, and look back fondly to the time when the world and I
+were in embryo.
+
+And yet I wonder if extreme age is as repulsive to everybody as it is
+to me. Forty seems a long way off. I fancy people at forty become very
+uninteresting to the oncoming generation. Fifty is grandmotherly and
+suitable for little else. Sixty, seventy, and beyond seem to me one
+horrible jumble of wrinkles and wheezes and false beauty and general
+unpleasantness. Oh, I hope, if I should live to be over fifty, that I may
+be a pleasant old person. I hope my teeth will fit me, and the parting to
+my wave be always in the middle. I hope my fingers will always come fully
+to the ends of my gloves, and that I never shall wear my spectacles on top
+of my head. But I hope more than all that it isn't wicked to wish to die
+before I come to these things.
+
+Before I entirely lose my youth--in other words, before I become an Old
+Maid, let me see what I must give up. Lovers, of course. That goes
+without saying. And if I give them up, it will not do to have their
+photographs standing around. They must be--oh! and their letters--must
+they too be destroyed? Dear me, no! I'll just fold them all together and
+lay them away, like a wedding-dress which never has been worn. And I'll
+put girls' pictures or missionaries' or martyrs' into the empty frames.
+Martyrs' would be most appropriate.
+
+Now for a box to put them in. A pretty box, so that one who runs may read?
+Not so, you sentimental Elderly Person. Take this tin box with a lock on
+it. There you are, done up in a japanned box and padlocked. I would say
+that it looks like a little coffin if I wasn't afraid of what my Alter Ego
+would say. She seems cross to-night. I wonder what is the matter with her.
+She must be getting old. I should like to hang the key around my neck on a
+blue ribbon, but I am afraid. "What if you should be run over and killed,"
+she says, "or should faint away in church? Remember that you are an Old
+Maid." How disagreeable old maids can be! And I've got to live with this
+one always. I'll put the key in my purse. Nice, sensible, prosaic place,
+a purse.
+
+How late it grows! I have only a little time left. I believe that clock
+is fast. Dear, dear! Do I want to just sit still and watch myself turn?
+I meant to have old age overtake me in my sleep. I think I'll stop that
+clock and let my youth fade from me unawares.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+                         I COME INTO MY KINGDOM
+
+     "There is no compensation for the woman who feels that the chief
+     relation of her life has been no more than a mistake. She has lost
+     her crown. The deepest secret of human blessedness has half
+     whispered itself to her and then forever passed her by."
+
+
+I have become an Old Maid, and really it is a relief. I feel as if I had
+left myself behind me, and that now I have a right to the interests of
+other people when they are freely offered. My friends always have confided
+in me. I suppose it is because I am receptive. Men tell me their old love
+affairs. Girls tell me the whole story of their engagements--how they came
+to take this man, and why they did not take that one. And even the most
+ordinary are vitally interesting. Before I know it, I am rent with the
+same despair which agitates the lover confiding in me; or I am wreathed
+in the smiles of the engaged girl who is getting her absorbing secret
+comfortably off her mind. It seems to comfort them to air their emotion,
+and sometimes I am convinced that they leave the most of it with me.
+
+Now I can feel at liberty to enjoy and sympathize as I will. Well, the
+love affairs of other people are the rightful inheritance of old maids.
+In sharing them I am only coming into my kingdom.
+
+Alice Asbury has made shipwreck of hers. The girl is actively miserable
+and her husband is indifferently uncomfortable, which is the habit this
+married couple have of experiencing the same emotion.
+
+Alice is a mass of contradictions to those who do not understand her--now
+in the clouds, now in the depths. Bad weather depresses her; so does a sad
+story, the death of a kitten, solemn music. She is correspondingly
+volatile in the opposite direction and often laughs at real calamities
+with wonderful courage. She has a fund of romance in her nature which has
+led her to the pass she now is in. She is clever, too, at introspection
+and analysis--of herself chiefly. She studies her own sensations and
+dissects her moods. Her selfishness is of the peculiar sort which should
+have kept her from marrying until she found the hundredth man who could
+appreciate her genius and bend it into nobler channels. Unfortunately she
+married one of the ninety-nine. She is not, perhaps, more selfish than
+many another woman, but her selfishness is different. She is mentally
+cross-eyed from turning her eyes inward so constantly.
+
+She became engaged to Brandt--a man in every way worthy of her--and they
+loved each other devotedly. Then during a quarrel she broke the
+engagement, and he, being piqued by her withdrawal, immediately married
+May Lawrence, who had been patiently in love with him for five years, and
+who was only waiting for some such turn as this to deliver him into her
+hands. A poetic justice visits him with misery, for he still cares for
+Alice. May, however, is not conscious of this fact as yet.
+
+Alice, being doubly stung by his defection, was just in the mood to do
+something desperate, when she began to see a great deal of Asbury, fresh
+from being jilted by Sallie Cox. Asbury was moody, and confided in Alice.
+Alice was foolish, and confided in him. They both decided that their
+hearts were ashes, love burned out, and life a howling wilderness, and
+then proceeded to exchange these empty hearts of theirs, and to go through
+the howling wilderness together.
+
+Alice came to tell me about it. They had no love to give each other, she
+said sadly, but they were going to be married. I would have laughed at her
+if she had not been so tragic. But there is something about Alice, in
+spite of her romantic folly, (which she has adapted from the French to
+suit her American needs,) which forbids ridicule. Nevertheless I felt,
+with one of those sudden flashes of intuition, that this choice of hers
+was a hideous mistake. The situation repelled me. But the very strangeness
+of it seemed to attract the morbid Alice. And it was this one curious
+strain of unexplained foolishness marring her otherwise strong and in many
+ways beautiful character which prevented my loving her completely and
+safely. Nevertheless, I cared for her enough to enter my feeble and futile
+protest; but it was waved aside with the superb effrontery of a woman who
+feels that she controls the situation with her head, and whose heart is
+not at liberty to make uncomfortable complications. I would rather argue
+with a woman who is desperately in love, to prevent her marrying the man
+of her choice, than to try to dissuade a woman from marrying a man she has
+set her head upon. You feel sympathy with the former, and you have human
+nature and the whole glorious love-making Past at your back, to give you
+confidence and eloquence. But with the latter you are cowed and beaten
+beforehand, and tongue-tied during the contest.
+
+So she became Alice Asbury, and these two blighted beings took a flat.
+Before they had been at home from their honeymoon a week she came down to
+see me, and told me that she hated Asbury.
+
+Imagine a bride whose bouquet, only a month before, you had held at the
+altar, and heard her promise to love, honor, and obey a man until death
+did them part, coming to you with a confession like that. Still, if but
+one half she tells me of him is true, I do not wonder that she hates him.
+
+With her revolutionary, anarchistic completeness, she has renounced the
+idea of compromise or adaptability as finally as if she had seen and
+passed the end of the world. There is no more pliability in her with
+regard to Asbury than there is in a steel rod. How different she used to
+be with Brandt! How she consulted his wishes and accommodated herself to
+him!
+
+When a woman born to be ruled by love only passes by her master spirit,
+she becomes an anomaly in woman--she makes complications over which the
+psychologist wastes midnight oil, and if he never discovers the solution,
+it is because of its very simplicity.
+
+All the sweetness seems to have left Alice's nature. She keeps somebody
+with her every moment. That one guest chamber in her flat has been
+occupied by all the girls that she can persuade to visit her. Asbury
+dislikes company, but she says she does not care. She cannot keep
+visitors long, because as soon as they discover that they are unwelcome
+to Asbury, naturally they go home.
+
+Fortunately, Asbury does not care for Sallie Cox any more. When his vanity
+was wounded, his love died instantly. I think he is more in love with
+himself than he ever was with any woman. There are men, you know, whose
+one grand passion in life is for themselves. But Alice knows that Brandt
+still cares for her, and she feeds her romantic fancy on this fact, and
+has her introspective miseries to her heart's content. She is far too
+cool-headed a woman to do anything rash. Sometimes I think her morbid
+nature obtains more real satisfaction out of her joyless situation than
+positive happiness would compensate her for. She appears to take a certain
+negative pleasure in it. Their marriage is the product of a false
+civilization, and I pity them--at a distance--from the bottom of my heart.
+I am sorry for Brandt, too, for he honestly loved Alice and might have
+proved the hundredth man--who knows?
+
+I do not quite know whether to be sorry for May Brandt or not, for she
+made complications and made them purposely. She made them so promptly,
+too, that she precluded the possibility of a reconciliation between Alice
+and Brandt. If Brandt had remained single, I doubt whether Alice would
+have had the courage to form an engagement with any other man. She loved
+him too truly to take the first step towards an eternal separation. Women
+seldom dare make that first move, except as a decoy. They are naturally
+superstitious, and even when curiously free from this trait in everything
+else, they cling to a little in love, and dare not tempt Fate too
+insolently.
+
+A woman who has quarrelled with her lover, in her secret heart expects him
+back daily and hourly, no matter what the cause of the estrangement, until
+he becomes involved with another woman. Then she lays all the blame of his
+defection at the door of the alien, where, in the opinion of an Old Maid,
+it generally belongs.
+
+If other women would let men alone, constancy would be less of a hollow
+mockery. (Query, but is it constancy where there is no temptation to be
+fickle?) Nevertheless, let "another woman" sympathize with an estranged
+lover, and place a little delicate blame upon his sweetheart and flatter
+him a great deal, and _presto!_ you have one of those criss-cross
+engagements which turns life to a dull gray for the aching heart which
+is left out.
+
+If, too, when this honestly loving woman appears to take the first step,
+her actions and mental processes could be analyzed and timed, it
+frequently would prove that, with her quicker calculations, she foresaw
+the fatal effect of the "other-woman" element, and, desirous of protecting
+her vanity, reached blindly out to the nearest man at her command, and
+married him with magnificent effrontery, just to circumvent humiliation
+and to take a little wind out of the other woman's sails. But could you
+make her lover believe that? Never.
+
+And so May Lawrence played the "other woman" in the Asbury tragedy. I
+wonder if she is satisfied with her rôle. A girl who wilfully catches a
+man's heart on the rebound, does the thing which involves more risk than
+anything else malevolent fate could devise.
+
+On the whole, I think I am sorry for her, for she has apples of Sodom in
+her hand, although as yet to her delighted gaze they appear the fairest
+of summer fruit.
+
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+                          MATRIMONY IN HARNESS
+
+                               "What eagles are we still
+                  In matters that belong to other men;
+                  What beetles in our own!"
+
+
+The more I know of horses, the more natural I think men and women are in
+the unequalness of their marriages. I never yet saw a pair of horses so
+well matched that they pulled evenly all the time. The more skilful the
+driver, the less he lets the discrepancy become apparent. Going up hill,
+one horse generally does the greater share of work. If they pull equally
+up hill, sometimes they see-saw and pull in jerks on a level road. And I
+never saw a marriage in which both persons pulled evenly all the time, and
+the worst of it is, I suppose this unevenness is only what is always
+expected.
+
+Having no marriage of my own to worry over, it is gratuitous when I worry
+over other people's. Old maids, you know, like to air their views on
+matrimony and bringing up children. Their theories on these subjects have
+this advantage--that they always hold good because they never are tried.
+
+There never was such an unequal yoking together as the Herricks'. Nobody
+has told me. This is one of the affairs which has not been confided to me.
+Only, I knew them both so well before they were married. I knew Bronson
+Herrick best, however, because I never used to see any more of Flossy than
+was necessary.
+
+To begin with, I never liked her name. I have an idea that names show
+character. Could anybody under heaven be noble with such a name as Flossy?
+I believe names handicap people. I believe children are sometimes tortured
+by hideous and unmeaning names. But give them strong, ugly names in
+preference to Ina and Bessie and Flossy and such pretty-pretty names, with
+no meaning and no character to them. Take my own name, Ruth. If I wanted
+to be noble or heroic I could be; my name would not be an anomalous
+nightmare to attract attention to the incongruity. We cannot be too
+thankful to our mothers who named us Mary and Dorothy and Constance. What
+an inspiration to be "faithful over a few things" such a name as Constance
+must be!
+
+But Flossy's mother named her--not Florence, but Flossy. I suppose she was
+one of those fluffy, curly, silky babies. She grew to be that kind of a
+girl--a Flossy girl. It speaks for itself. I suppose with that name she
+never had any incentive to outgrow her nature.
+
+It came out on her wedding cards:
+
+    "Mr. and Mrs. CHARLES FAY CARLETON
+     request you to be present at the
+        marriage of their daughter
+                 FLOSSY
+                   to
+       Mr. BRONSON STURGIS HERRICK."
+
+The contrast between the two names, hers so nonsensical and his so
+dignified and strong, was no greater than that between the two people.
+In truth, their names were symbolic of their natures. It looked really
+pitiful to me.
+
+I wondered if anybody besides Rachel English and me looked into their
+future with apprehension. Our misgivings, I must admit, were all for
+Bronson.
+
+Ah, well-a-day! It is so easy to feel sympathy for a man you admire,
+especially if he is strong and loyal, and does not ask or desire it of
+you.
+
+Flossy was one of those cuddling girls. She appealed to you with her eyes,
+and you found yourself petting her and sympathizing with her, when, if you
+stopped to think, you would see that she had more of everything than you
+had. She possessed a rich father, a beautiful house, and perfect health.
+Nevertheless, you found yourself asking after "poor Flossy," and your
+voice commiserated her if your words did not. She invariably had some
+trifling ill to tell you of. She had hurt her arm, or scratched her hand,
+or the snow made her eyes ache, or she was tired. She never seemed at
+liberty to enjoy herself, although she went everywhere, and seemed to do
+so successfully in spite of her imaginary ills, if you let her enjoy
+herself by telling you of them.
+
+Everybody helped Flossy to live. Everybody protected and looked after her.
+There was some one on his knees continually, removing invisible brambles
+from her rose-leaf path. She didn't know how to do anything for herself.
+She never buttoned her own boots. When her maid was not with her, other
+people put her jacket on for her, and carried her umbrella and buttoned
+her gloves. Men always buttoned her gloves, and her gloves always had more
+buttons, and more unruly buttons, than any other gloves I ever saw. But
+then I am elderly.
+
+I never knew Flossy to do anything for anybody. She never gave things
+away, but on Christmas and her birthdays she received remembrances from
+everybody. I used to make her presents without knowing why or even
+thinking of it. Flossy's name was on all the Christmas lists, and she used
+to shed tears over the kindness of her friends, and write the prettiest
+notes to them, so plaintive and self-deprecatory. Then they took her to
+drive, or did something more for her. Flossy read poetry and cried over
+it. She wrote poetry too, and other people cried over that.
+
+When Bronson Herrick told me he was going to marry her, I wanted to say,
+"No, you are not." But I didn't. I did not even seem to be surprised, for
+he is so proud he would have resented any surprise on my part. He told me
+about it of course, knowing that I could not fail to be pleased. (His
+photograph is in that japanned box of mine. This smile on my face, Tabby,
+is rather sardonic. Why is it that men expect an old sweetheart to take an
+active interest in their bride-elect, and are so deadly sure that they
+will like each other?)
+
+"She is the most sympathetic little thing," he said enthusiastically. "She
+reminds me of you in so many ways. You are very much alike."
+
+"Oh, thank you, Bronson Sturgis Herrick! I assure you I would cheerfully
+drown myself if I thought you were right about that," I exclaimed
+mentally.
+
+He repeated over and over that she was "so sympathetic." He meant, of
+course, that she had wept over him. Flossy's tears flow like rain if you
+crook your finger at her, and tears wring the heart of a man like Bronson.
+To think he was going to marry her! I just looked at him, I remember, as
+he stood so straight and tall before me, and said to myself, "Well, you
+dear, honest, loyal, clever man! You are just the kind of a man that women
+fool most unmercifully. But it's nature, and you can't help it. Go and
+marry this Flossy girl, and commit mental suicide if you must."
+
+"Sympathetic!"
+
+So he married her five years ago, and became her man-servant.
+
+When they had been married about a year, people said that Bronson was
+working himself to death. I, being an Old Maid, and liking to meddle with
+other people's business, told him that I thought he ought to take a
+vacation. He said he couldn't afford it. I was honestly surprised at that,
+because, while he was not rich, he was extremely well-to-do, with a
+rapidly increasing law practice. And then Flossy's father had been very
+generous when she married him. He was considerate enough to reply to my
+look.
+
+"You know I married a rich girl. Flossy's money is her own. She has saved
+it--I wished her to save it, I _wished_ it--and I am doing my level best
+to support her as nearly as possible in the way in which she has been
+accustomed to live. She ought to have an easier time, poor child."
+
+So he did not take a vacation, and the summer was very hot, and when
+Flossy came home from Rye she found him wretchedly ill, and discovered
+that he had had a trained nurse for two weeks before he let her know
+anything about it. Then people pitied Flossy for having her summer
+interrupted, and Flossy felt that it was a shame; but she very willingly
+sat and fanned Bronson for as much as an hour every day and answered
+questions languidly and was pale, and people sent her flowers and were
+extremely sorry for her.
+
+When Bronson became well enough to go away, as his doctors ordered, for a
+complete rest, Rachel English happened to go on the same train with them,
+and the next day I received a letter, or rather an envelope, from her,
+with this single sentence enclosed: "And if she didn't make him hold her
+in his arms in broad daylight every step of the way, because the train
+jarred her back!"
+
+(Tabby, there is no use in talking. I must stop and pull your ears. Come
+here and let Missis be really rough with you for a minute.)
+
+There are some women who prefer a valet to a husband; who think that the
+more menial are his services in public, the more apparent is his devotion.
+It is a Roman-chariot-wheel idea, which degrades both the man and the
+woman in the eyes of the spectators. I wrote to Rachel, and said in the
+letter, "One horse in the span always does most of the pulling, you know,
+especially uphill." And Rachel wrote back, "Wouldn't I just like to drive
+this pair, though!"
+
+Bronson had his ideals before he was married, as most men have, concerning
+the kind of a home he hoped for. He always said that it was not so much
+what your home was, as how it was. He believed that a home consisted more
+in the feelings and aims of its inmates than in rugs and jardinières. He
+said to me once, "The oneness of two people could make a home in Sahara."
+
+He was ambitious, too, feeling within himself that power which makes
+orators and statesmen, but needing the approval and encouragement of some
+one who also realized his capabilities, to enable him to do his best. He
+himself was the one who was sympathetic, if he had only known it. His
+nature responded with the utmost readiness to whatever appealed to him
+from the side of right or justice.
+
+He had noble hopes in many directions, hopes which inspired me to believe
+in his truth and goodness, aside from his capabilities for achieving
+greatness. His eagle sight, which read through other men's shams and
+pretences; his moral sense, which bade him shun even the appearance of
+evil, not only permitted, but urged him, seemingly, into this marriage
+with Flossy, by which he effectually cut himself off from his dearest
+aspirations. One by one I have seen him relinquish them, holding to them
+lovingly to the last. The hours at home, which he intended to give to
+study and research, have been sacrificed to the petting and nursing of a
+perfectly well woman, who demanded it of him. His home life, where he had
+dreamed of a congenial atmosphere, where the centripetal force should be
+the love of wife and children, merged into frequent journeys for
+Flossy--who would have been happy if she never had been obliged to stay in
+one place over a week--and a shifting of their one child Rachel into the
+care of nurses, because Flossy fretted at the care of her and demanded all
+of Bronson's time for herself.
+
+Thus was Bronson's life being twisted and bent from its natural course.
+Was it a weakness in him? To be sure he might have shown his strength by
+breaking loose from family ties, and, hardening his heart to his wife's
+plaints, have carried out his ambitions with some degree of success. He
+did attempt this, nor did he fail in his career. He was called a fairly
+successful man. I dare say the majority of people never knew that he was
+created for grander things. But something was sapping his energy at the
+fountain-head. Was he realizing that he had helped to shatter his ideals
+with his own hand?
+
+I never am so well satisfied with my lot of single-blessedness as when I
+contemplate the sort of wife Flossy makes. That may sound arrogant, but
+this is a secret session of human nature, when arrogance and all
+native-born sins are permissible.
+
+Flossy is perfectly unconscious of the spectacle she presents to the
+world. Ah, me! I know it is said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." I
+might have made him just such a wife, I suppose. O heavens! no, I
+shouldn't. Tabby, that is making humility go a little too far.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+                             WOMEN AS LOVERS
+
+                "In every clime and country
+                   There lives a Man of Pain,
+                 Whose nerves, like chords of lightning,
+                   Bring fire into his brain:
+                 To him a whisper is a wound,
+                   A look or sneer, a blow;
+                 More pangs he feels in years or months
+                   Than dunce-throng'd ages know."
+
+
+I have had such a curious experience. I have been confided in, twice in
+one day. Two more bits out of other lives have been given to me, and it is
+astonishing to see how well they piece into mine.
+
+To begin with, Rachel English came in early. There is something
+particularly auspicious about Rachel. She fits me like a glove. She never
+jars nor grates. When she is here, I am comfortable; when she is gone, I
+miss something. If I see a fine painting, or hear magnificent music, I
+think of Rachel before any other thought comes into my mind. One
+involuntarily associates her with anything wonderfully fine in art or
+literature, with the perfect assurance that she will be sympathetic and
+appreciative. She understands the deep, inarticulate emotions in the
+kindred way you have a right to expect of your lover, and which you are
+oftenest disappointed in, if you do expect it of him. If I were a man, I
+should be in love with Rachel.
+
+Her sensitiveness through every available channel makes her of no use to
+general society. Blundering people tread on her; malicious ones tear her
+to pieces. Rachel ought to be caged, and only approached by clever people
+who have brains enough to appreciate her. I should like to be her keeper.
+But her organization is too closely allied to that of genius to be happy,
+unless with certain environments which it is too good to believe will ever
+surround her. She is so clever that she is perfectly helpless. If you knew
+her, this would not be a paradox. Possibly it isn't anyway.
+
+I do not say that Rachel is perfect. She would be desperately
+uncomfortable as a friend if she were. Her failings are those belonging to
+a frank, impulsive, generous nature, which I myself find it easy to
+forgive. Her gravest fault is a witty tongue. That which many people would
+give years of their lives to possess is what she has shed the most tears
+over and which she most liberally detests in herself. She calls it her
+private demon, and says she knows that one of the devils, in the woman who
+was possessed of seven, was the devil of wit.
+
+Wit is a weapon of defence, and was no more intended to be an attribute of
+woman than is a knowledge of fire-arms or a fondness for mice. A witty
+woman is an anomaly, fit only for literary circles and to be admired at a
+distance.
+
+It is of no use to advise Rachel to curb her tongue. So tender-hearted
+that the sight of an animal in pain makes her faint; so humble-minded that
+she cannot bear to receive an apology, but, no matter what has been the
+offence, cuts it off short and hastens to accept it before it is uttered,
+with the generous assurance that she, too, has been to blame; yet she
+wounds cruelly, but unconsciously, with her tongue, which cleaves like a
+knife, and holds up your dearest, most private foibles on stilettos of wit
+for the public to mock at. Not that she is personal in her allusions, but
+her thorough knowledge of the philosophy of human nature and the deep,
+secret springs of human action lead her to witty, satirical
+generalizations, which are so painfully true that each one of her hearers
+goes home hugging a personal affront, while poor Rachel never dreams of
+lacerated feelings until she meets averted faces or hears a whisper of
+her heinous sin. This grieves her wofully, but leaves her with no mode of
+redress, for who dare offer balm to wounded vanity? I believe her when she
+says she "never wilfully planted a thorn in any human breast."
+
+She scarcely had entered before I saw that she had something on her mind.
+And it was not long before she began to confide, but in an impersonal way.
+
+There is something which makes you hold your breath before you enter the
+inner nature of some one who has extraordinary depth. You feel as if you
+were going to find something different and interesting, and possibly
+difficult or explosive. It is dark, too, yet you feel impelled to enter.
+It is like going into a cave.
+
+Most people are afraid of Rachel. Sometimes I am. But it is the alluring,
+hysterical fear which makes a child say, "Scare me again."
+
+Imagine such a girl in love. Rachel is in love. She would not say with
+whom--naturally. At least, naturally for Rachel. I felt rather helpless,
+but as I knew that all she wanted was an intelligent sympathizer, not
+verbal assistance, I was willing to blunder a little. I knew she would
+speedily set me right.
+
+"You are too clever to marry," I said at a hazard.
+
+"That is one of the most popular of fallacies," she answered me
+crushingly. "Why can't clever women marry, and make just as good wives as
+the others? Why can't a woman bend her cleverness to see that her house is
+in order, and her dinners well cooked, and buttons sewed on, as well as
+to discuss new books and keep pace with her husband intellectually? Do you
+suppose because I know Greek that I cannot be in love? Do you suppose
+because I went through higher mathematics that I never pressed a flower he
+gave me? Do you imagine that Biology kills blushing in a woman? Do you
+think that Philosophy keeps me from crying myself to sleep when I think he
+doesn't care for me, or growing idiotically glad when he tells me he does?
+What rubbish people write upon this subject! Even Pope proved that he was
+only a man when he said,
+
+    "'Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
+      And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.'
+
+"Did you ever read such foolishness?"
+
+"Often, my dear, often. But console yourself. A wiser than Pope says, 'The
+learned eye is still the loving one.'"
+
+"Browning, of course. I ought not to be surprised that the prince of poets
+should be clever enough to know that. It is from his own experience. 'Who
+writes to himself, writes to an eternal public.' You see, Ruth, men can't
+help looking at the question from the other side, because they form the
+other side. You might cram a woman's head with all the wisdom of the ages,
+and while it would frighten every man who came near her into hysterics, it
+wouldn't keep her from going down abjectly before some man who had sense
+enough to know that higher education does not rob a woman of her
+womanliness. Depend upon it, Ruth, when it does, she would have been
+unwomanly and masculine if she hadn't been able to read. And it is the man
+who marries a woman of brains who is going to get the most out of this
+life."
+
+"Men don't want clever wives," I said feebly.
+
+"Clever men don't. Why is it that all the brightest men we know have
+selected girls who looked pretty and have coddled them? Look at Bronson
+and Flossy. That man is lonesome, I tell you, Ruth. He actually hungers
+and thirsts for his intellectual and moral affinity, and yet even he did
+not have the sense--the astuteness--to select a wife who would have stood
+at his side, instead of one who lay in a wad at his feet. Oh, the
+bungling marriages that we see! I believe one reason is that like seldom
+marries like. For my part I do not believe in the marriage of opposites.
+Look at Robert Browning and his wife. That is my ideal marriage. Their art
+and brains were married, as well as their hands and hearts. It is pure
+music to think of it. And, to me, the most pathetic poem in the English
+language is Browning's 'Andrea del Sarto.'"
+
+"Isn't it strange to see the kind of men who love clever women like you?
+You never could have brought yourself to marry any of them, expecting to
+find them congenial. They would have admired you in dumb silence, until
+they grew tired of feeling your superiority; after that--what?"
+
+"The deluge, I suppose. Ruth, I don't see how a woman with any
+self-respect can marry until she meets her master. That is high treason,
+isn't it? But it is one of those sentient bits of truth which we never
+mention in society. The man I marry must have a stronger will and a
+greater brain than I have, or I should rule him. I'll never marry until I
+find a man who knows more than I do. Yet, as to these other men who have
+loved me--you know what a tender place a woman has in her heart for the
+men who have wanted to marry her. My intellect repudiated, but my heart
+cherishes them still. Odd things, hearts. Sometimes I wish we didn't have
+any when they ache so. I feel like disagreeing with all the poets to-day,
+because they will not say what I believe. Do you remember this, from
+Beaumont and Fletcher,
+
+    "'Of all the paths that lead to woman's love
+     Pity's the straightest'?
+
+"Men are fond of saying that, I notice, but I don't think we women bear
+out the truth. I couldn't love a man I pitied. I could love one I was
+proud of, or afraid of, but one I pitied? Never. It is more true to say
+it of men. I believe plenty of girls obtain husbands by virtue of their
+weakness, their loneliness, their helplessness, their--anything which
+makes a man pity them. Pleasant thought, isn't it, for a woman who loves
+her own sex and wishes it held its head up better! You may say that it is
+this sort who receive more of the attentions that women love, chivalry
+and tenderness and devotion. But if all or any of these were inspired by
+pity, I'd rather not have them. I would rather a man would be rough and
+brusque with me, if he loved me heroically, than to see him fling his coat
+in the mud for me to step on, because he pitied my weakness. Do you know,
+Ruth, I think men are a good deal more human than women. You can work them
+out by algebra (for they never have more than one unknown quantity, and in
+the woman problem there would be more _x_'s than anything else), and you
+can go by rules and get the answer. But nothing ever calculated or evolved
+can get the final answer to one woman--though they do say she is fond of
+the last word! We understand ourselves intuitively, and we understand men
+by study, yet we are made the receivers, not the givers; the chosen, not
+the choosers. It really is an absurd dispensation when you view it apart
+from sentiment, yet I, for one, would not have it changed. I should not
+mind being Cupid for a while, though, and giving him a few ideas in the
+mating line.
+
+"I think women are often misjudged. Men seem to think that all we want is
+to be loved. Now, it isn't all that I want. If I had to choose between
+being loved by a man--_the_ man, let us say--and not loving him at all,
+or loving him very dearly and not being loved by him, I would choose the
+latter, for I think that more happiness comes from loving than from being
+loved."
+
+"Why _don't_ you marry somebody?" I asked in an agony of entreaty, for
+fear all of this would be wasted on me, an Old Maid, rather than upon some
+man. She shook her head.
+
+"It needs a compelling, not a persuasive, power to win a woman. No man who
+takes me like this," closing her thumb and forefinger as if holding a
+butterfly, "can have me. The one who dares to take me like this,"
+clenching her hand, "will get me. But he will not come."
+
+Then I walked with her to the door, and she bent over me, and whispered
+something about my being a "blessed comfort" to her, and went away. Ah,
+Tabby, my dear, it is worth while being an Old Maid to be a blessed
+comfort to anybody. But I would just like to ask you, as a cat of
+intelligence, what in the world I did for her!
+
+Imagine some man making that girl care for him so much. For, of course,
+it is somebody. A girl does not say such things about the abstract man.
+
+I was in an uplifted state of mind all day, as I am always after a talk
+with Rachel, and when Percival came in the evening, I felt that I could
+deluge him with my gathered sentiment, and he would be receptive. Besides,
+Percival has a positive genius for understanding. I did not know it,
+however, this morning. I seldom know as much in the morning as I do at
+night.
+
+Percival approves of sentiment. He said once that a life which had
+principle and sentiment needed little else, for principle was to stand
+upon, and sentiment was to beautify with. He said this after I had told
+him rather apologetically that I wished there was more sentiment in the
+world, because I liked it. Is it strange that I like Percival? You can't
+help admiring people who approve of you.
+
+Percival is a genius. People in general do not recognize this fact. He is
+an inarticulate genius. Men feel that he is in some occult way different
+from them, yet they do not know just how. Nor will they ever take the
+trouble to study out a problem in human nature, either in man or woman,
+unless they are philosophers.
+
+Women care for Percival in proportion to their intuitions. You must
+comprehend him synthetically. You cannot dissect him. With generous
+appreciation and sympathetic encouragement, Percival's genius would become
+articulate. To discover it he must needs marry--but he must wait for the
+hundredth woman. This, of course, he will not do. If he can find a Flossy,
+he will go down on his knees to her, when she ought to be on hers to him;
+metaphorical knees, in this case.
+
+I am very much afraid he has found her. He is in love. You can always tell
+when a man is in love, Tabby, especially if he is not the lovering kind
+and has never been troubled in that way before. The best kind of love has
+to be so intuitive that it often is grandly, heroically awkward. Depend
+upon it, Tabby, a man who is dainty and pretty and unspeakably smooth when
+he makes love to you, has had altogether too much practice.
+
+Percival knows that he is in love--that is one great step in the right
+direction. But he is in that first partly alarmed, partly curious frame of
+mind that a man would be in who touched his broken arm for the first time
+to see how much it hurt. Whoever she is, he loves her deeply and thinks
+she never can care for him. He did not tell me this. If he thought that I
+knew it, he would wonder how in the world I found it out. Women are born
+lovers. They have to do the bulk of the loving all through the world. I
+told Percival so. At first he seemed surprised; then he said that it was
+true. I believe some men could go through life without loving anybody on
+earth. But the woman never lived who could do it. A woman must love
+something--even if she hasn't anything better to love than a pug-dog or
+herself.
+
+"Why aren't women the choosers?" said Percival seriously. The same
+question twice in one day, Tabby. "Whenever I think of understanding the
+question of love, I wish for a woman's intuitions. Women know so much
+about it. They absorb the whole question at a glance. But, with so many
+different kinds of women, how is a man to know anything?"
+
+I always liked Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when
+he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and
+throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly
+towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to
+say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices
+and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to
+understand them by intuition as women understand men. "The masculine
+mind," he said, "is but ill-attuned to the subtle harmonies of the
+feminine heart."
+
+I was secretly very much pleased at this remark, but I made myself answer
+as became an Old Maid, just to make him continue without
+self-consciousness. If I had blushed and thanked him, he would have gone
+home.
+
+"They set these things down to the natural curiousness and contrariness
+of women, and often despise what they cannot comprehend."
+
+He answered me with the heightened consciousness and slight irritation of
+a man who has been in that fault, but has seen and mended it.
+
+"All men do not. Still, how can they help it at times?"
+
+Then, Tabby, I went a-sailing. I launched out on my favorite theme.
+
+"Men must needs study women. Often the terror with which some men regard
+these--to us--perfectly transparent complexities, could be avoided if they
+would analyze the cause with but half the patience they display in the
+case of an ailing trotter. But no; either they edge carefully away from
+such dangers as they previously have experienced, or, if they blunder into
+new ones, they give the woman a sealskin and trust to time to heal the
+breach."
+
+I thought of the Asburys when I said that. But Percival ruminated upon it,
+as if it touched his own case. A very good thing about Percival is that
+he does not think he knows everything. It encourages me to believe in his
+genius. To rouse him from a brown-study over this Flossy girl, I said
+rather recklessly,
+
+"I should like to be a man for a while, in order to make love to two or
+three women. I would do it in a way which should not shock them with its
+coarseness or starve them with its poverty. As it is now, most women deny
+themselves the expression of the best part of their love, because they
+know it will be either a puzzle or a terror to their lovers."
+
+Percival was vitally interested at once.
+
+"Is that really so?" he asked. "Do you suppose any of them withhold
+anything from such a fear?" His face was so uplifted that I plunged on,
+thoroughly in the dark, but, like Barkis, "willin'." If I could be of use
+to him in an emergency, I was only too happy.
+
+"Men never realize the height of the pedestal where women in love place
+them, nor do they know with how many perfections they are invested nor how
+religiously women keep themselves deceived on the subject. They cannot
+comprehend the succession of little shocks which is caused by the real man
+coming in contact with the ideal. And if they did understand, they would
+think that such mere trifles should not affect the genuine article of
+love, and that women simply should overlook foibles, and go on loving the
+damaged article just as blindly as before. But what man could view his
+favorite marble tumbling from its pedestal continually, and losing first a
+finger, then an arm, then a nose, and would go on setting it up each time,
+admiring and reverencing in the mutilated remains the perfect creation
+which first enraptured him? He wouldn't take the trouble to fill up the
+nicks and glue on the lost fingers as women do to their idols. He wouldn't
+even try to love it as he used to do. When it began to look too battered
+up, he would say, 'Here, put this thing in the cellar and let's get it out
+of the way.'"
+
+Percival listened with specific interest, and admitted its truth with a
+fair-mindedness surprising even in him.
+
+"Do you suppose it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a
+woman?" he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure,
+towards that empty-headed sweetheart of his.
+
+"I really do not know," I said honestly. "I think if he tried with all his
+might he could."
+
+"Do you think--you know me better than any one else does--do you think
+_I_ could, if I gave my whole mind to it?"
+
+"You, if anybody." I answered him with the occasional absolute
+truthfulness which occurs between a man and a woman when they are
+completely lifted out of themselves. Something more than mere pleasure
+shone in his eyes. It was as if I had reached his soul.
+
+"If no man ever has been all that a woman in love really believes him, the
+best a man could do would be to take care that she never found out her
+mistake," he said slowly.
+
+"Exactly," I said; "you are getting on. It is only another way of making
+yourself live up to her ideal of you."
+
+"Supposing after all, that the woman I love will have none of me," he
+said, unconsciously slipping from the third person to the first.
+
+"I wouldn't admit even the possibility if I were a man. I would besiege
+the fortress. I would sit on her front doorstep until she gave in. Don't
+ask her to have you. Tell her you are going to have her whether or no," I
+cried, thinking of Rachel's words. He looked so encouraged that I am
+afraid I have sent him post-haste to the Flossy girl, and gotten him into
+life-long trouble. But I had gone too far. I quite hurried, in my
+accidental endeavor to shipwreck him.
+
+"Men do not understand these things, because they will not give time
+enough to them. Real love-making requires the patience, the tenderness,
+the sympathy which women alone possess in the highest degree. Possibly she
+loves you deeply, only you do not believe it. Gauged by a woman's love,
+many men love, marry, and die, without even approximating the real grand
+passion themselves, or comprehending that which they have inspired, for
+no one but a woman can fathom a woman's love."
+
+I couldn't help going on after I started, for he was thinking of the other
+woman, and looking at me in a way that would have made my heart turn over,
+if I hadn't been an Old Maid, and known that his look was not for me.
+
+Then he ground my rings into my hand until I nearly shrieked with the
+pain, and said, "God bless you!" very hoarsely, and dashed out of the
+house before I could pull myself together. _I_ say so too. God bless me,
+what have I done? I've sent him straight to that Flossy girl. I feel it.
+I've smoothed out something between them. I have accidentally made him
+articulate, and articulation in such a man as Percival is overpowering. He
+is a murdered man, and mine is the hand that slew him.
+
+Tabby, old maids are a public nuisance, not to say dangerous. They ought
+to be suppressed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I wonder if he will burst in upon her with that look upon his face!
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+                        THE HEART OF A COQUETTE
+
+             "Strange, that a film of smoke can blot a star!"
+
+
+He did. And the woman was--Rachel. Tabby, I never was better pleased with
+myself in my life. I love old maids. I think that whenever they are
+accidental they are perfectly lovely. But _what_ a risk I ran!
+
+I did not know a thing about it until I received their wedding-cards. It
+was just like Rachel not to tell me, and it was insufferably stupid in me
+not to use the few wits I am possessed of, and see how matters stood. But
+my fears and tremors were that Frankie Taliaferro would get him, so I have
+watched her all this time. Percival laughed almost scornfully when I told
+him this, and said I had been barking up the wrong tree. I retaliated by
+saying that if they had been ordinary lovers, I never could have made
+such a mistake, and they took it as a great compliment. When I consider
+the general run of engaged people, I am inclined to agree with them.
+Everybody seems to think they are making an experiment of marriage,
+because they are so much alike. But, then, doesn't every one who marries
+at all, Jew or Gentile, black or white, bond or free, make an experiment?
+I myself have no fear as to how the Percival experiment will turn out.
+Rachel says that they are so similar in all their tastes and ideals that
+if she were a man she would be Percival, and if he were a woman he would
+be Rachel. "Then you still would have a chance to marry each other," I
+said frivolously. But she assented with a depth of feeling which ignored
+my feeble attempt to be cheerful. "Yet," she continued, "there is a
+subtle, alluring difference in our thoughts; just enough to add piquancy,
+not irritation, to a discussion. I do not love white, and he does not love
+black, as so many husbands and wives do. We both love gray; different
+tones of gray, but still gray. It is very restful." The Percivals are not
+only restful to themselves, but to others. They used to be in the highly
+irritable, nervous state of those whose sensitive organisms are a little
+too fine for this world. I never objected to it myself, but I have said
+before that Rachel was of no use to ordinary society, and Percival was
+little better. When people failed to understand her, she retired into
+herself with a dignity which was mistaken for ill-temper. She is too
+refined and high-minded to defend herself against the "slings and arrows
+of outrageous" people, although if she would, she could exterminate them
+with her wit. And some could so easily be spared. It seems, too, that she
+is great enough to be a target, so she is under fire continually. This,
+while it causes her exquisite suffering, is from no fault of her own--save
+the unforgivable one of being original. "A frog spat at a glow-worm. 'Why
+do you spit at me?' said the glow-worm. 'Why do you shine so?' said the
+frog." And as to Percival--the man I used to know was Percival in embryo.
+He is maturing now, and is radiant in Rachel's sympathetic comprehension
+of him. He refers to the time before he knew her as his "protoplasmic
+state," as indeed it was. But there are a good many of us who would be
+willing to remain protoplasm all our lives to possess a tithe of his
+genius--you and I among the number, Tabby. You needn't look at me so
+reproachfully out of your old-gold eyes. You know you would.
+
+You have seen Sallie Cox, haven't you? Then you know how it jarred my
+nerves to have her rush in upon me when my mind was full of the Percivals.
+
+Sallie has flirted joyously through life thus far, and has appeared to
+have about as little heart as any girl I ever knew. Sallie is the _sauce
+piquante_ in one's life--absolutely necessary at times to make things
+taste at all, but a little of her goes a long way. At least so I thought
+until to-day.
+
+"I've got something to tell you, Ruth," she said, "so come with me, and we
+will take a little drive before going to cooking-school."
+
+I went, knowing, of course, that she wanted to confide something about
+some of her lovers.
+
+"I am going to be married," she announced coldly. "It's Payson Osborne
+this time, and I'm really going to see the thing through. It's rather a
+joke on me, because it commenced this way. I was sick of lovers, and some
+of the last had been so unpleasant, not to say rude, when I threw them
+over, that I thought I would take a vacation. So when I met Payson, I
+said, 'What do you say to a Platonic friendship?' It sounds harmless, you
+know, Ruth, and he, not knowing me at all, assented. If he had been a man
+who knew of my checkered career, he would have refused, suspecting, of
+course, that I was going to flirt with him under a new name. But, as I was
+serious this time, I knew it was all right. So we began. I suppose you
+know he is enormously rich, besides being so handsome, and there will not
+be a girl in town who won't say I raised heaven and earth to get him; but
+I don't mind telling you, Ruth--because you are such an old dear, and
+never are bothered with lovers(!); besides, it will do me good to tell it,
+and I know you will never betray me--that I never cared for any man on
+earth except Winston Percival. You needn't jump, and look as though the
+house was on fire. It's the solemn truth, and I never dreamed that he
+cared for Rachel until he married her. Mind you, he never pretended to
+love me. It is every bit one-sided, and I don't care if it is. I am glad
+that a frivolous, shallow-minded, rattle-brained thing like me had sense
+enough to fall in love with the most glorious man that ever came into her
+life. I shouldn't have made him half as good a wife as Rachel does--I
+really feel as if they were made for each other--but he would have made a
+woman of me. I'm honestly glad he is so happy, and things are much more
+suitable as they are, for Payson is a thorough-going society man, and
+doesn't ask much in a wife or he wouldn't have me, and he doesn't expect
+much from a wife or he couldn't get me.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know that a girl who makes a business of wearing scalps
+at her belt never stands a bit of a chance with a man she really loves,
+for she is afraid to practise on him the wiles which she knows from
+experience have been successful with scores of others, because she feels
+that he will see through them, and scorn her as she scorns herself in his
+presence. She loses her courage, she loses control of herself, and, being
+used to depend on 'business,' as actors say, to carry out her rôle
+successfully, she finds that she is only reading her lines, and reading
+them very badly too. If you could have seen me with Percival, you would
+know what I mean. I was dull, uninteresting, poky--no more the Sallie Cox
+that other men know than I am you. He absorbed my personality. I didn't
+care for myself or how I appeared. I only wanted him to shine and be his
+natural, brilliant self. I never could have helped him in his work. The
+most I could have hoped to do would have been not to hinder him. I would
+have been the gainer--it would have been the act of a home missionary for
+him to marry me."
+
+She laughed drearily.
+
+"Isn't it horribly immoral in me to sit here and talk in this way about a
+married man? It's a wonder it doesn't turn the color of the cushions. If
+you hear of my having the brougham relined, Ruth, you will know why.
+Ruth, I am so miserable at times it seems to me that I shall die. I'd love
+to cry this minute--cry just as hard as I could, and scream, and beat my
+head against something hard--how do you do, Mrs. Asbury?--but instead, I
+have to bow from the windows to people, and remember that I am supposed to
+be the complaisant bride-elect of the catch of the season. It is a
+judgment on me, Ruth, to find that I have a heart, when I have always gone
+on the principle that nobody had any. Yes--how-de-do, Miss Culpepper?
+excuse me a minute, Ruth, while I hate that girl. What has she done to me?
+Oh, nothing to speak of--she only had the bad taste to fall in love with
+the man I am going to marry. Writes him notes all the time, making love to
+him, which he promptly shows to me--oh, we are not very honorable, or very
+upright, or very anything good in the Osborne matrimonial arrangement.
+Anybody but you would hate me for all this I've told you, but I know you
+are pitying me with all your soul, because you know the empty-headed
+Sallie Cox carries with her a very sore heart, and that it will take more
+than Payson Osborne has got to give to heal it. I call him Pay sometimes,
+but he hates it. I only do it when I think how much he does pay for a very
+bad bargain. But he doesn't care, so why should I?
+
+"It really does seem odd, when I look back on it, to see how easy it was
+to get him, when all the time I was perfectly indifferent to him, and
+received his attentions on the Platonic basis to keep him from making love
+to me. I really think I never had any one to care for me in so exactly the
+way I like, and to be so easy in his demands, and to think me so
+altogether perfect and charming, no matter what I do. It was because I was
+absolutely indifferent to him. I never cared when he came. I never cared
+when he went. Other lovers fussed and quarrelled and were jealous and
+disagreeable when I flirted with other men, but Payson never cared. He
+didn't tease me, you know. And whenever he said anything, I could look
+innocent and say, 'Is that Platonic friendship?' So he would have to
+subside. I know he thought some of my indifference was assumed, for when
+he told me about Miss Culpepper he thought I would be vexed. I _was_
+vexed, but I had presence of mind not to show it. I only laughed and made
+no comment at all--asked him what time it was, I believe. Then when he
+looked so disappointed and sulky, I knew I was right, and I patted Sallie
+Cox on the head for being so clever--so clever as not to care, chiefly.
+There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you cannot do with a man who loves
+you, if you don't care a speck for him. And the luxury of perfect
+indifference! Emotions are awfully wearing, Ruth. I wonder that these
+emotional women like Rachel get on at all. I should think they would die
+of the strain. Men are always deadly afraid of such women. I believe
+Payson wouldn't stop running till he got to California if I should burst
+into tears and not be able to tell him instantly just exactly where my
+neuralgia had jumped to. No unknown waverings and quaverings of the heart
+for my good Osborne. There goes Alice Asbury again. I am dying to tell you
+something. You know why she hates me, and understand why she treats me so
+abominably? Well, Asbury gave her the same engagement ring he gave me, and
+she doesn't know it. Rich, isn't it? Here we are at the cooking-school. I
+am so glad I can slam a carriage-door without being rude. It is such a
+relief to one's overcharged feelings."
+
+Tabby, dear, if your head ever spun round and round at some of the
+confidences I have bestowed upon you, I can sympathize with you, for, as I
+went into that class, my feelings were so wrenched and twisted that I was
+as limp as cooked macaroni. You will excuse the simile, but that was one
+of the articles at cooking-school to-day, and when the teacher took it up
+on a fork, it did express my state of mind so exquisitely that I cannot
+forbear to use it.
+
+Sallie Cox! Well, I am amazed. Who would think that that bright, saucy,
+clever little flirt, who rides on the crest of the wave always, could have
+such a heart history? And Percival of all men! I wonder what he would say
+if he knew. I don't know what to think about her marrying Payson Osborne.
+The last thing she whispered to me as we came out of cooking-school was,
+"Don't be too sorry for me because I am going to marry him. Believe me, it
+is the very best thing that could happen to me."
+
+I am very fond of the girl to-night. What a pity it is that everybody does
+not know her as she really is! No one understands her, and she has flirted
+so outrageously with most of the men that the girls' friendship for her is
+very hollow. A few, of whom Alice Asbury is one, dare to show this quite
+plainly, and of course Sallie doesn't like it. She pretends not to care
+for women's friendship, but she does. She would love to be friendly with
+all the girls, but they remember the misery she has made them suffer, and
+won't have it.
+
+Still, there is no doubt that she is marrying the man most of them want,
+so that again she triumphs. But, unless I am much mistaken, even as Mrs.
+Payson Osborne it will take her a long time to recover her place with the
+women which she has lost by having so many of their sweethearts and
+brothers in love with her.
+
+Ah, Tabby, what a deal of secret misery there is in the world! Everybody
+will envy Sallie Cox and think that she is the luckiest girl, and Sallie
+will smile and pretend--for what other course is left to her, and who can
+blame women who pretend under such circumstances? Perhaps there are
+reasons just as good for many other pretenders in this world. Who knows?
+We would be gentler if we knew more.
+
+There will be other sore hearts besides Sallie's at her wedding. I had
+heard before that Miss Culpepper was quite desperate over Osborne, but, as
+she was a girl whom everybody thought a lady, I had no idea that she had
+gone so far as Sallie says. Osborne probably didn't object to being made
+love to. A man of his stamp would not be over-refined. Strange, now,
+Sallie does not love Osborne herself, but she promptly hates every other
+girl who dares to do it. Aren't girls queer?
+
+Then there are a score of men who will gnash their teeth for Sallie--so
+many men love these Sallie Coxes.
+
+Frankie Taliaferro, the Kentucky beauty, who is staying with her this
+winter, tells me that Sallie has had several dreadful scenes with
+discarded suitors--that one said he would forbid the banns, and another
+threatened to shoot himself if she really married Osborne.
+
+I wonder how many marriages there really are where both are perfectly free
+to marry. I mean, no secret entanglements on either side, no other man
+wanting the bride, no girl bitterly jealous of her. I never heard of
+one--not among the people _I_ know, at least.
+
+Oh, Tabby, think of all the fusses people keep out of who promptly settle
+down at the appointed time and become peaceful old maids. How sensible we
+were, Tabby, you and Missis.
+
+But doesn't it seem to you that people marry from very mixed motives? I
+used to have an idea--when I was painfully young, of course--that they
+married because they were so fortunate as to fall in love with each other.
+Are you quite sure that foolish notion is out of your head too?
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+                  THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD
+
+     "Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?... To be great is to be
+     misunderstood."
+
+
+I have been away since early last summer, and consequently never had seen
+Flossy's new baby until the newness had worn off, and it had arrived at
+the dignity of a backbone, and had left its wobbly period far behind. I am
+in mortal terror of a very little baby. It feels so much like a sponge,
+yet lacks the sponge's recuperative qualities. I am always afraid if I
+dent it the dents will stay in. You know they don't in a sponge.
+
+As soon as I came home, of course I went to see Flossy's baby, and was
+very much disconcerted to discover that she had named it for me. I was
+afraid, I remember, that she would want to name the first girl for me, but
+she did not. She named her after Rachel. I had an uncomfortable idea,
+however, that my name had been discussed and vetoed, by either Flossy or
+Bronson. But this time the baby is named Ruth, and I found that it was all
+Flossy's doing.
+
+I was irritated without knowing why. I didn't want anybody to know it
+though, and so I was vexed when Bronson said to me, "I couldn't help it,
+Ruth." There was no use in pretending not to understand. I could with some
+men, but not with Bronson. He is too magnificently honest himself, and
+uplifts me by expecting me to be equally so. Nevertheless I failed him in
+one particular, for I answered him in my loftiest manner, "I am not at all
+displeased. It is a great compliment, I am sure."
+
+There is nothing so uncivil at times as to be cuttingly polite. What I
+said wasn't so at all. But a woman is obliged to defend herself from a man
+who reads her like an open book.
+
+Flossy does not like children, and poor little Rachel never has had a life
+of roses. Flossy says children are such a care and require so much
+attention.
+
+"Rachel was all that I could attend to, and here all winter I have had
+another one on my hands to keep me at home, and make me lose sleep, and
+grow old before my time. I don't see why such burdens have to be put upon
+people. Children are too thick in this world any way."
+
+She fretted on in this strain for some time, until Bronson looked up and
+said,
+
+"Don't, Flossy. You don't mean what you say. Do tell her the little thing
+is welcome."
+
+"I do mean what I say," answered Flossy.
+
+Then, as Bronson left the room abruptly, Flossy said,
+
+"And I was determined to name her after you. Bronson didn't want me to. He
+said you wouldn't thank me for it, but I told him that Rachel Percival was
+quite delighted with her namesake."
+
+I hid my indignantly smarting eyes in the folds of the baby's dress, as I
+held her up before my face, and made her laugh at the flowers in my hat.
+Flossy thought I was not listening to her with sufficient interest; so she
+got up and crossed the room with that little stumble of hers, which used
+to be so taking with the men when she was a girl, and took Ruth away from
+me.
+
+There was a great contrast between the two children. Rachel Herrick is a
+shy child, with a delicate, refined face, lighted by wonderful gray eyes
+like Bronson's. I do not understand her. She seems afraid of me, and I
+confess I am equally afraid of her. Even Rachel Percival does not get on
+with her very well, although she has bravely tried. The child spends most
+of her time in the library, devouring all the books she can lay her hands
+on. Little Ruth is a round, soft, fluffy baby, all dimples and smiles and
+good-nature, willing to roll or crawl into anybody's lap or affections. A
+very good baby to exhibit, for strangers delight in her, and pet her just
+as people always have petted Flossy. Rachel stands mutely watching all
+such demonstrations, her pale face rigid with some emotion, and her eyes
+brilliant and hard. She is not a child one would dare take liberties with.
+No one ever pets her. Flossy complains continually of her to visitors and
+to Bronson, so that Bronson has gotten into the way of reproving her
+mechanically whenever his eye rests upon her. Her very presence, always
+silent, always inwardly critical, seems to irritate her parents. She was
+not doing a thing, but sitting sedately, with a heavy book on her lap,
+watching the baby, with that curious expression on her face; but Flossy
+couldn't let her alone.
+
+"Baby loves her mother, doesn't she? She is not like naughty sister
+Rachel, who won't do anything but read, and never loves anybody but
+herself. Sister says bad things to poor sick mamma, and mamma can't love
+her, can she? But mamma loves her pretty, sweet baby, so she does."
+
+Rachel glanced at me with a hunted look in her eyes which wrung my heart.
+But, before I could think, she slid down and the big book fell with a
+crash to the floor. She ran towards the baby with a wicked look on her
+small face, and the baby leaped and held out its hands, but Rachel
+clenched her teeth, and slapped the outstretched hand as she rushed past
+her and out of the room.
+
+Poor little Ruth looked at the red place on her hand a minute, then her
+lip quivered, and she began to cry pitifully.
+
+I instinctively looked to see Flossy gather her up to comfort her. It is
+so easy to dry a child's tears with a little love. But she rang for the
+nurse and fretfully exclaimed,
+
+"Isn't that just like her! I declare I can't see why a child of mine
+should have such a wicked temper. Here, Simpson, take this young nuisance
+and stop her crying. Oh, poor little me! Ruth, I'm thankful that you have
+no children to wear your life out."
+
+I dryly remarked that I too considered it rather a cause for gratitude,
+and came away.
+
+Poor little Rachel Herrick! Unlovely as her action was, I cannot help
+thinking that it was unpremeditated; that it was the unexpected result of
+some strong inward feeling. She looked like one who was justly indignant,
+and, considering what Flossy had said, I felt that her anger was
+righteous. That her disposition is unfortunate cannot be denied. She seems
+already to be an Ishmaelite, for whenever she speaks it is to fling out a
+remark so biting in its sarcasm, so bitter and satirical, that Flossy is
+afraid of her, and Bronson reproves her with unnecessary severity, because
+her offence is that of a grown person, which her childish stature mocks.
+Other children both fear and hate her. They resent her cleverness. They
+like to use her wits to organize their plays, but they never include her,
+for she always wants to lead, feeling, doubtless, that she inherently
+possesses the qualities of a leader, and chafing, as a heroic soul must,
+under inferior management. Flossy makes her go out to play regularly with
+them every day, but it is a pitiful sight, for she feels her unpopularity,
+and children are cruel to each other with the cruelty of vindictive
+dulness; so Rachel, after standing about among them forlornly for a while,
+like a stray robin among a flock of little owls, comes creeping in alone,
+and sits down in the library with a book. She is the loneliest child I
+ever knew. If she cared, people would at least be sorry for her; but she
+seems to love no one, never seeks sympathy if she is hurt, repels all
+attempts to ease pain, and cures herself with her beloved books. I never
+saw any one kiss or offer to pet her, but they make a great fuss over the
+baby, and Rachel watches them with glittering eyes. I thought once that it
+was jealousy, and, going up to her, laid my hand on her head, but she
+shook it off as if it had been a viper, and ran out of the room.
+
+I had grown very fond of my namesake, and used to go there when Flossy was
+away, and sit in the nursery. The nurse told me once that Mrs. Herrick saw
+so little of the baby that it was afraid, and cried at the sight of her. I
+reproved her for speaking in that manner of her mistress, but she only
+tossed her head knowingly, and I dropped the subject. Servants often are
+aware of more than we give them credit for.
+
+Saturday before Easter I stopped at Flossy's, but she was not at home. I
+left some flowers for her, and asked to see the baby, but the nurse said
+she was asleep.
+
+Easter morning I did not go to church, and Rachel Percival came early in
+the afternoon to see if I were ill. While she was here this note arrived
+by a messenger:
+
+     "DEAR RUTH,--I know you will grieve for me when I tell you that our
+     baby went away from us quite suddenly this morning, while the
+     Easter bells were ringing so joyfully. They rang the knell of a
+     mother's heart, for they rang my baby's spirit into Paradise.
+
+     "I feel, through my tears, that it is better so, for she will bind
+     me closer to Heaven when I think that she, in her purity, awaits me
+     there.
+
+     "Hoping to see you very soon, I am
+                     "Your loving         FLOSSY.
+
+     "P.S.--Bronson seems to feel the baby's death to a truly
+     astonishing degree.                  F. H."
+
+I flung the note across to Rachel, and, putting my head down on my two
+arms, I cried just as hard as I could cry.
+
+Rachel read it, then tore it into twenty bits, and ground her heel into
+the fragments.
+
+"Why, Rachel Percival! what is the matter?"
+
+"She wasn't even at home. She was at church. She must have been. She told
+me that Bronson was afraid to have her leave the baby, and wouldn't come
+himself, but that she didn't think anything was the matter with it, and
+wouldn't be tied down. Then such a note so soon afterwards! Ruth, what is
+that woman made of?"
+
+We went together to Flossy's. She came across the room to meet us,
+supported by Bronson. She stumbled two or three times in the attempt.
+Tears were running down Bronson's face, and he wiped them away quite
+humbly, as if he did not mind our seeing them in the least. I could not
+bear to watch him, so I slipped out of the room and went upstairs.
+
+"In here, 'm," said the nurse; "and Miss Rachel is here too. She won't
+move that far from the cradle, and she hasn't shed a tear."
+
+Ruth lay peacefully in her little lace crib, covered with violets, and
+beside her, rigid and white and tearless, stood Rachel. I was almost
+afraid of the child as I looked at her. She turned her great eyes upon me
+dumbly, with so exactly Bronson's expression in them that all at once I
+understood her. I knelt down beside her, and gathering her little tense
+frame all up in my arms, I began whispering to her. The tears rolled down
+her cheeks, and soon she was crying hysterically. Bronson came bounding
+upstairs at the sound, but she seized me more tightly around the neck and
+held me chokingly. I motioned him back, and succeeded in carrying her away
+to a quiet place, where I sat down with her in my arms, and made love to
+her for hours.
+
+I never heard a more pitiful story than she told me, between strangling
+sobs, of her hungry life. The child has been yearning for affection all
+the time, but has unconsciously repelled it by her manner. She said nobody
+on earth loved her except the baby, and now the baby was dead.
+
+"There is no use of your trying to make things different," she said,
+"especially with mamma. She wouldn't care if I was dead too. But papa
+could understand, I think, if he would only try to love me. But I love
+you--oh! I love you so much that it hurts me. Nobody ever came and hugged
+me up the way you did, in my whole life. You have made things over for me,
+and I'll love you for it till I die. Why is it that everybody gives mamma
+and the baby so much love, when they never cared for it, and I care so
+much and never get a single bit? Nobody understands me, and every
+one--every one calls me bad. I'm not bad. I love plenty of people who
+can't love me. I am not bad, I tell you!"
+
+She cried herself nearly sick, and then, exhausted, fell asleep, with her
+face pressed against mine. Thus Bronson found us. He offered to take her,
+and I put her into his arms. Then I told him all that she had said, and
+asked him to hold her until she wakened, and give her some of the love her
+little heart was hungering for. He couldn't speak when I finished, and I
+went down, to find Rachel bathing Flossy's head with cologne, and looking
+worn and tired.
+
+Percival came for Rachel, and one could see that the mere sight of him
+rested her. She told him all about it, in her wonderfully comprehensive
+way, and he felt the whole thing, and we were all very quiet and peaceful
+and sad, as we drove home through the early darkness of that Easter day.
+
+They left me at my door, and I went in alone, with the memory of that
+grieving household--the lonely father, and the selfish mother, and the
+unloved child--hallowed and made tender by the presence of the little dead
+baby, asleep under its weight of violets.
+
+I feel very much alone sometimes; but the Percivals carry their world with
+them.
+
+
+
+
+                                   VII
+
+                          A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE
+
+                    "I am myself indifferent honest."
+
+
+I have just made two startling discoveries. One is that I am not honest
+myself, and the other is that I detest honesty in other people.
+
+To-day I was sitting peacefully in my room, harming nobody, when I saw
+little Pet Winterbotham drive up in her cart and come running up to the
+door. I supposed she had come with a message from her sister, and went
+down, thinking to be detained about ten minutes.
+
+It seems but a few years ago since Pet was in the kindergarten. I was
+surprised to see that she wore her dresses very long, and that she looked
+almost grown up.
+
+"My dear Pet," I exclaimed, "what is the matter?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Ruth, I am in such a scrape," she answered me. "I hope you won't
+think it's queer that I came to you, but the fact is, I've watched you in
+church, and you always look as if you knew, and would help people if they
+would ask you to; so I thought I'd try you.
+
+"Ever and ever so long ago, when I was a little bit of a thing, and played
+with other children, and you and sister Grace went out together, I used to
+'choose' you from all the other young ladies, because you wore such lovely
+hats, and always had on pearl-colored gloves. I suppose it is so long ago
+that you were a young lady and had beaux that you've forgotten it. But I
+know you used to have lovers, for I heard Mrs. Herrick and Mrs. Payson
+Osborne talking about you once, and Mrs. Herrick said you seemed so
+tranquil and contented that she supposed you never had had any really good
+offers, or you would be all the time wishing you had taken one. And Mrs.
+Osborne spoke up in her quick way, and said, 'Don't deceive yourself so
+comfortably, my dear Flossy. I know positively that Ruth has had several
+offers that you and I would have jumped at.' And then she turned away and
+laughed and laughed, although I didn't see anything so very funny in what
+she said, and neither did Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"I do think Mrs. Osborne is the loveliest person I know. She is my ideal
+young married woman. She always has a smile and a pretty word for every
+one, and young men like her better than they do the buds. Why, your face
+is as red as fire. I hope I haven't said anything unpleasant. Mamma says I
+blunder horribly, but she always is too busy to tell me how not to
+blunder.
+
+"Now, I want to know which of these two men you would advise me to marry.
+I've got to take one, I suppose."
+
+"Marry!" I exclaimed, so explosively that Pet started. "Why, child, how
+old are you?"
+
+"I'm nineteen," she said, in rather an injured tone, "and I've always made
+up my mind to marry young, if I got a good enough offer. I hate old maids.
+Oh, excuse me. I don't mean you, of course. I wouldn't marry a clerk, you
+understand, just to be marrying. I'm not so silly. I have plenty of
+common-sense in other things, and I'm going to put some of it into the
+marriage question. Don't you think I'm sensible?"
+
+"Very," I answered; but I didn't, Tabby. I thought she was a goose.
+
+"Well now," proceeded my young caller, settling her ribbons with a pretty
+air of importance, and looking at me out of the most innocent eyes in the
+world, "my sister Grace married Brian Beck because he had such a lot of
+money. But you know he is dissipated, and at first Grace almost went
+distracted. Then she made up her mind to let him go his own gait, and she
+has as good a time as she can on his money. His Irish name Brian is her
+thorn in the flesh, and he teases her nearly out of her wits about it. We
+have great fun on the yacht every summer. Brian is awfully good to me, and
+invites nice men to take with us; still, much as I like Brian as a
+brother-in-law, I shouldn't care to have a husband like him. Now, I
+suppose you wonder why on earth I am telling you these things, and why I
+don't tell one of the girls I go with."
+
+"Oh, no!" I exclaimed in protest.
+
+"Of course. I see you think it wouldn't be safe. Girls just can't help
+telling, to save their lives. Sometimes they don't intend to, and then
+it's bad enough. But sometimes they do it just to be mean, and you can't
+help yourself. I have plenty of confidence in you though, and you don't
+look as if you'd be easily shocked. You look as though you could tell a
+good deal if you wanted to. You're an awfully comfortable sort of a
+person. Now, let me tell you. I have two offers. One is from Clinton
+Frost, and the other is from Jack Whitehouse. You have seen me with Mr.
+Frost, haven't you? A dark, fierce, melancholy man, with black eyes and
+hair, and very distinguished looking.
+
+"I think he has a history. He throws out hints that way. He is gloomy with
+everybody but me, and Brian will do nothing but joke with him. There is
+nothing Mr. Frost dislikes as much as to laugh or to see other people
+laugh. Brian calls him 'Pet's nightmare,' and threatens to give him ink to
+drink.
+
+"I believe Mr. Frost hates Brian. He says the name of our yacht, _Hittie
+Magin_, is unspeakably vulgar. Nothing pleases Brian more than to force
+Mr. Frost or Grace to tell strangers the name of it. Their mere speaking
+the words throws Brian into convulsions of laughter. Then, if people
+comment on it, he tells them that the name is of his wife's selection, in
+deference to his Irish family. And Grace almost faints with mortification.
+Mr. Frost says he will give me a yacht twice as good as Brian's. He adores
+me. He says I am the only thing in life which makes him smile."
+
+I felt that I could sympathize with Mr. Frost on this point.
+
+"Then there's Jack Whitehouse, Norris Whitehouse's nephew. Mr. Norris
+Whitehouse is a great friend of yours, isn't he? Do you know, I never
+think of him as an 'eligible,' although he is a bachelor. I should as soon
+think of a king in that light. He impresses me more than any man I ever
+knew. Don't you consider him odd? No? I do. He is so clever that you would
+be afraid of him, if it wasn't for his lovely manners, which make you
+feel as though what you are saying is just what he has been wanting to
+know, and he is so glad he has met some one who is able to tell him.
+Actually he treats me with more respect than some of the young men do. He
+makes me feel as if I were a woman, and he had a right to expect something
+good of me. I never said that to anybody before, but I can talk to you and
+feel that you understand me. I like to feel that people think there is
+something to me, even if I know that it isn't much. Mrs. Asbury says that
+Mr. Whitehouse is the courtliest man she knows. You know the story of the
+Whitehouse money, don't you? Jack told it to me with tears in his eyes,
+and I don't wonder at it. You know Jack's father and mother died when he
+was very young. Norris was his father's favorite, and the old gentleman
+made a most unjust will, leaving only a life interest in the property to
+Jack's father; then it all went to his favorite younger son, Norris. Now,
+you know what most men would do under the circumstances. They would
+acknowledge the injustice of the will, but they would keep the money.
+This proves to me what an unusual man Mr. Norris Whitehouse is, for he
+immediately made over to his little nephew Jack one half of the
+property--just what his father ought to have been able to leave him--and
+Jack is to come into that when he is twenty-five. Don't you think that was
+noble? Jack worships him. He says no father could have been more devoted
+to an only son than his uncle Norris has been to him. He travelled with
+him, and gave up years of his life to superintending Jack's education.
+
+"Now, whoever marries Jack will really be at the head of that elegant
+house, for you know it hasn't had a mistress since Jack's mother died,
+years ago. I should like that, although I do wish more of the expense was
+in furniture instead of in pictures and tapestries. But that is his
+uncle's taste.
+
+"Poor Jack talks so beautifully about his young mother, whom he can
+scarcely remember. He says his uncle has kept her alive to him. He is
+perfectly lovely with other fellows' mothers, and with mine. He treats
+them all, he says, as he should like to have had others treat his mother.
+Of course it is only sentiment with him. If she had lived, he might have
+given her as much trouble as other boys give theirs. She must have been
+lovely. Mamma says she was. But I'd just as soon not have any
+mother-in-law to tell me to wrap up, and wear rubbers if it looked like
+rain. You know there isn't a bit of sentiment in me. I'm practical. My
+father says if I had been a boy he would have taken me into business at
+fifteen. Jack thinks I am all sentiment. He says nobody could have a face
+like mine and not possess an innate love of the beautiful in art and
+poetry and all that. I have forgotten just what he said about that part of
+it. But I know he meant to praise me. I didn't say anything in reply, but
+I smiled to myself at the idea of Pet Winterbotham being credited with
+fine sentiment.
+
+"Jack is horribly young--only twenty-two--so he won't have his money for
+three years, and Mr. Frost is thirty-nine. Jack has curly hair, and when
+he wears a white tennis suit and puts his cap on the back of his head and
+holds a cigarette in his hand, he looks as if he had just stepped out of
+one of the pictures in _Life_. He looks so 'chappie.' He is a good deal
+easier to get along with than Mr. Frost, and will have more money some
+day, although Mr. Frost has enough. Now, which would you take?"
+
+"Why, my dear Pet," I said in an unguarded moment, "which do you love?"
+
+I shrivelled visibly under the look of scorn she cast upon me.
+
+"I don't love either of them. I've had one love affair and I don't care
+for another until I make sure which man I'm going to marry."
+
+"Can you fall in love to order?" I asked in dismay.
+
+"Not exactly. 'To order!' Why, no. Anybody would think you were having
+boots made. But it's being with a man, and having him awfully good to you,
+and admiring everything you say, and having lots of good clothes, and not
+being in love with any other fellow, that makes you love a man. I'm sure
+from your manner that you like Jack Whitehouse the best, so I think I'll
+take him. You are awfully sweet, and not a bit like an old maid. I tell
+everybody so."
+
+"Am I called an Old Maid?" I asked quickly. I could have bitten my tongue
+out for it afterwards.
+
+"Oh, yes indeed, by all the younger set. You see you belonged to Grace's
+set and they are all married. It makes you seem like a back number to us,
+but you don't look like an old maid. I suppose you can look back ages and
+ages and remember when you had lovers, can't you? Or have you forgotten? I
+can't imagine you ever getting love-letters or flowers or any such things.
+I hope I haven't offended you. I am horribly honest, you know. I say just
+what I think, and you mustn't mind it. Mamma says I am too truthful to be
+pleasant. But I like honesty myself, don't you?"
+
+And with that, Tabby, she went away.
+
+How terrible the child is! Now, Pet is one of those persons who go about
+lacerating people and clothing their ignorance, or their insolence, in the
+garb of honesty.
+
+"I am honest," say they, "so you must not be offended, but is it true that
+your grandfather was hanged for being a pirate?" Or, "I believe in being
+perfectly honest with people. How cross-eyed you are!"
+
+This is why honesty is so disreputable. When you say of a woman, "She is
+one of those honest, outspoken persons," it means that she will probably
+hurt your feelings, or insult you in your first interview with her.
+
+I don't like to admit it even to you, Tabby, but I am horribly shaken up.
+After all these years of talking about myself to you as an Old Maid, and
+knowing that I am one, to hear myself called such, and to catch a glimpse
+of the way I appear to the oncoming generation, shakes me to the
+foundation of my being. Soon _I_ shall be pushed to the wall, as something
+too worn out to be needed by bright young people. Soon _I_ shall be one of
+the old people whom I have so dreaded all my life. Dear Tabby-cat! You can
+remember when Missis received love-letters, can't you? They are not all in
+the japanned box, are they? Do I seem old to you, kitty? Why, there is
+actually a tear on your gray fur. Dear me, what a silly Old Maid Missis
+is!
+
+You see, after all, I have not been honest, even with myself. And, just
+between you and me, I will say that I abominate honesty in other people.
+There!
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+                            A GAME OF HEARTS
+
+                   "Man proposes, but Heaven disposes."
+
+
+Tabby, did you ever hear me speak of Charlie Hardy? No, of course not.
+Your mother must have been a kitten when I knew Charlie the best. He is a
+nice boy. Boy! What am I talking about? He is as old as I am. But he is
+the kind of man who always seems a boy, and everybody who has known him
+two days calls him Charlie.
+
+Rachel Percival never thought much of him. She said he was weak, and
+weakness in a man is something Rachel never excuses. She says it is
+trespassing on one of the special privileges of our sex. Thus she disposed
+of Charlie Hardy.
+
+"Look at his chin," said Rachel; "could a man be strong with a chin like
+that?"
+
+"But he is so kind-hearted and easy to get along with," I urged.
+
+"Very likely. He hasn't strength of mind to quarrel. He is unwilling, like
+most easy-going men, to inflict that kind of pain. But he could be as
+cruel as the grave in other ways. Look at him. He always is in hot water
+about something, and never does as people expect him to do."
+
+"But he doesn't do wrong on purpose, and he makes charming excuses and
+apologies."
+
+"He ought to; he has had enough practice," answered Rachel, with her
+beautiful smile. "He has what I call a conscience for surface things. He
+regards life from the wrong point of view, and, as to his always intending
+to do right--you know the place said to be paved with good intentions. No,
+no, Ruth. Charlie Hardy is a dangerous man, because he is weak. Through
+such men as he comes very bitter sorrow in this world."
+
+That conversation, Tabby, took place, if not before you were created, at
+least in your early infancy--the time when your own weight threw you down
+if you tried to walk, and when ears and tail were the least of your
+make-up.
+
+All these years Charlie has never married, but was always with the girls.
+He dropped with perfect composure from our set to Sallie Cox's--was her
+slave for two years, though Sallie declares that she never was engaged to
+him. "What's the use of being engaged to a man that you can keep on hand
+without?" quoth Sallie. But Charlie bore no malice. "I didn't stand the
+ghost of a show with a girl like Sallie, when she had such men as Winston
+Percival and those literary chaps around her. It was great sport to watch
+her with those men. You know what a little chatterbox she is. By Jove!
+when that fellow Percival began to talk, Sallie never had a word to say
+for herself. It must have been awfully hard for her, but she certainly let
+him do all the talking, and just sat and listened, looking as sweet as a
+peach. Oh! I never had any chance with Sallie."
+
+Nevertheless, he was usher at her wedding, then dropped peacefully to the
+next younger set, and now is going with girls of Pet Winterbotham's age.
+
+I thoroughly like the boy, but I can't imagine myself falling in love with
+him. If I were married to another man--an indiscreet thing for an Old Maid
+to say, Tabby, but I only use it for illustration--I should not mind
+Charlie Hardy's dropping in for Sunday dinner every week, if he wanted to.
+He never bothers. He never is in the way. He is as deft at buttoning a
+glove as he is amiable at playing cards. You always think of Charlie Hardy
+first if you are making up a theatre party. He serves equally well as
+groomsman or pall-bearer--although I do not speak from experience in
+either instance. He never is cross or sulky. He makes the best of
+everything, and I think men say that he is "an all-round good fellow."
+
+I depend a great deal upon other men's opinion of a man. I never
+thoroughly trust a man who is not a favorite with his own sex. I wish men
+were as generous to us in that respect, for a woman whom other women do
+not like is just as dangerous. And I never knew simple jealousy--the
+reason men urge against accepting our verdict--to be universal enough to
+condemn a woman. There always are a few fair-minded women in every
+community--just enough to be in the minority--to break continuous
+jealousy.
+
+Be that as it may, the man I am talking about has kept up his acquaintance
+with Rachel and Alice Asbury and me in a desultory way, and occasionally
+he grows confidential. The last time I saw him he said:
+
+"Sometimes I wish I were a woman, Ruth, when I get into so much trouble
+with the girls. Women never seem to have any worry over love affairs. All
+they have to do is to lean back and let men wait on them until they see
+one that suits them. It is like ordering from a _menu_ card for them to
+select husbands. You run over a list for a girl--oysters, clams, or
+terrapin--and she takes terrapin. In the other case she runs over her own
+list--Smith, Jones, or Robinson--and likewise takes the rarest. But she is
+not at all troubled about it. Marrying is so easy for a girl. It comes
+natural to her."
+
+Tabby, I did wish that he knew as much of the internal mechanism of the
+engagements that you and I have participated in, by proxy, as we do--if he
+would understand, profit by, and speedily forget the knowledge.
+
+But, like the hypocrite I am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for
+women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller
+ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit,
+Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their
+lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making
+up their minds." You see I uphold my own sex at all hazards--to men.
+
+He was standing up to go when he said that, but there was something about
+him which led me to suspect that he was in a condition when he needed some
+woman to straighten out his affairs. I made no reply, which threw the
+burden of continuing the conversation upon him. I was in that passive
+state which made me perfectly willing to have him say good-night and go
+home or stay and confess to me, just as he chose. I knew he needed me; a
+good many men need their mothers once in a while as much as they ever did
+when boys. There was something whimsically boyish about Charlie as he
+leaned over the back of a tall chair and debated secretly whether or not
+he should confide in me.
+
+"Why don't you ask me why I said that?" he said.
+
+"Because I know without asking. You were induced to say it by what you
+have been thinking of all the evening. It sounded like a beginning, but
+really it was an ending."
+
+He looked as though he thought me a mind-reader, but I fancy the knack of
+divining when people need a confidant is preternaturally developed in old
+maids.
+
+"How good you are, Ruth."
+
+"You men always think women are good when they understand you. But it
+isn't goodness."
+
+"No, you're right. It's more comfortable than goodness. It's odd how you
+do it. May I tell you about it? You won't think half as well of me as you
+do now, but it needs just such women as you to keep men straight, and if
+you will give me your opinion I vow I'll do as you say, even if it kills
+me."
+
+I was afraid from that desperate ending that it was something serious, and
+it was. He made several attempts before he could begin. Finally he burst
+out with,
+
+"Although you are the easiest person in the world to talk to, and I've
+known you always, it is pretty hard to lay this case before you so that
+you won't think me a conceited prig. That is because you are a woman and
+can't help looking at it from a woman's standpoint. For a good many
+reasons it would be easier to tell it to some man, who would know how it
+was himself; but you see I want a woman's conscience and a woman's
+judgment, because you can put yourself in another woman's place."
+
+He grew quite red as he talked, and I waited patiently for him to go on,
+but gave him no help.
+
+"Well, here goes. If you hate me afterwards I can't help it. I had no idea
+it would be so hard to tell you or I shouldn't have attempted it. But
+since you have been sitting there looking at me I am beginning to think
+differently of it myself, and I'm sure that, with all your kindness, you
+will be very hard on me, and tell me to accept the hardest alternative.
+Now, Ruth, you'd better shake hands with me and say good-by while you like
+me, because you will think of me as another Charlie Hardy when I've
+finished."
+
+He actually held out his hand, but I folded mine together.
+
+"No," I said, smiling, "I shall not bid you good-by until I really am
+through with you. Don't look so discouraged. Come; possibly I may be a
+better friend to you than you think."
+
+"You are awfully good," he said again. I don't know when I have so
+impressed a man with my extraordinary goodness as I did by listening to
+Charlie while he did all the talking. If I could have held my tongue
+another hour, he would have called me an angel.
+
+"Well, although you may not know it, I am engaged to Louise King. I
+always have been very fond of her, and when I found I couldn't get
+Sallie, I was sure I cared as much for Louise as I ever could care for
+anybody, and I was perfectly satisfied with her--thought she would make me
+an awfully good wife, and all that. But while Miss Taliaferro was up here
+visiting Sallie, I was with her a good deal, and the first thing I knew we
+were dead in love with each other. You know we were both in Sallie's
+wedding-party, and I tell you, Ruth, to stand up at the altar with a girl
+he is already half in love with, plays the very deuce with a man. Kentucky
+girls are all pretty, I suppose--everybody says so, and you have to make
+believe you think so whether you do or not; but this one--you know her?
+Isn't she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Well, of course she didn't
+know I was engaged, and I kept putting off telling her, until the first
+thing I knew I was letting her see how much I thought of her. I don't
+suppose it was at all difficult to see, but girls are keen on such
+subjects, and a man can't be in love with one more than a week before she
+knows more about it than he does. Then, after she told me that she loved
+me, how could I tell her that, in spite of what I had said, I was engaged
+to another girl? Wouldn't she have thought I was a rascal? No; I had to
+let her go home thinking that, if we were not already engaged, we should
+be some time, and I went part way with her, and--it was a mean trick to
+play, but the nonsensical things that unthinking people do precipitate
+affairs which perhaps without their means might never fully develop. Brian
+Beck heard that I was going a few miles with her, and he and Sallie and
+Payson came down to the train to see us off. Just as we pulled out of the
+station, Brian made the most frantic signs for me to open the window, and
+when I did so, he threw a tissue-paper package at me. Frankie and I both
+made an effort to catch it. Of course it burst when we touched it, and a
+good pound of rice was scattered all over us. You never saw such a sight.
+It flew in every direction; her hat and my hair were full of it. Some went
+down my collar. Of course everybody in the car roared and--well, I'm not
+done blushing at it yet. Frankie took it much better than I, and only
+laughed at it. But I--I felt more like crying. I saw instantly how it
+complicated things. It was a nail driven into my coffin.
+
+"We had no more than settled down from that and were just having a good
+little talk, after the passengers had stopped looking at us, when the
+porter appeared, bringing a basket of white flowers with two turtle-doves
+suspended from the handle, and Brian Beck's card on it. I wish you could
+have heard the people laugh. I declare to you, Ruth, when I saw that great
+white thing coming and knew what it meant, it looked as big as a
+billiard-table to me. I was going to pay the fellow to take it out again,
+but no--Frankie wanted it. She made me put it down on the opposite seat
+and there it stood. Those sickening birds were too much for me, so I
+jerked them off and threw them out of the window, conscious that my face
+was very red and that I was amusing more people than I had bargained for.
+
+"When the time came for me to get off and take the train back, Frankie
+implored me to go on with her, urging how strange it would look to
+people, who all thought we were married, to see me disappear and have her
+go on alone. I railed at the idea, but she was in earnest, and when I told
+her positively that I couldn't--thinking more, I must admit, of the state
+of my affairs than of hers--she began to cry under her veil. That settled
+it. Of course I couldn't stand it to see the girl I loved cry, so I went
+home with her, fell deeper in love every minute I was there, and came away
+feeling like a cur because I had not spoken to her father. Her people met
+me in the cordial, honest manner of those who have faith in mankind, but I
+couldn't look them in the face without flinching.
+
+"Since I came back, of course, I've been visiting Louise as usual. I told
+her all about the rice and flowers, thinking that if she quarrelled with
+me about the affair she would break off the engagement. But she only
+laughed and said it served me right for flirting with every girl that came
+along, and didn't even reproach me. She has absolute faith in me. She
+doesn't believe I could sink so low as I have, any more than she could.
+She has idealized me until I don't dare to breathe for fear of destroying
+the illusion. She thinks that I love her in the way she loves me, but I
+couldn't. It isn't in me, Ruth. I don't even love Frankie that way. To
+tell the truth, Louise is too good for me. She is magnificent, but I am
+rather afraid of her. She has so many ideals and is so intense. Her faith
+in me makes me shiver. I am not a bit comfortable with her. I do not even
+understand how she can love me so much. I am nothing extraordinary, but if
+you knew the way she treats me, you would think I was Achilles or some of
+those Greek fellows. She has refused better and richer men than I. Norris
+Whitehouse has loved her all her life, and you know what a splendid man he
+is, but Louise ridicules the idea of ever caring for anybody but me. She
+is so perfect that there is absolutely no flaw in her for me to recognize
+and feel friendly with. She reads me like a book, but I am less acquainted
+with her than I was before we were engaged. She says such beautiful things
+to me sometimes, things that are far beyond my comprehension, and she can
+get so uplifted that I feel as if I never had met her. There's no use in
+talking; after a girl falls in love with a man she often ceases to be the
+girl he courted."
+
+I recalled what I had said to Percival--"Often a woman denies herself the
+expression of the best part of her love, for fear that it will be either
+a puzzle or a terror to her lover." Such a saying belonged to Percival.
+I shouldn't think of repeating it to Charlie, for he could not comprehend
+it. I should puzzle him as much as Louise did. It made me heartsick. How
+could even Charlie Hardy so persistently misunderstand the grandeur of
+Louise King? Yet how could such a glorious girl imagine herself in love
+with nice, weak, agreeable Charlie Hardy?
+
+Louise is a younger, handsomer, more impetuous, less clever edition of
+Rachel Percival; but she is of that order. She is less concentrated and
+more emotional than Rachel. I did not quite know how a great sorrow would
+affect Louise. Rachel would use it as a stepping-stone towards heaven.
+
+I have seen a young, untried race-horse with small, pointed, restless
+ears; with delicate nostrils where the red blood showed; with full, soft
+eyes where fire flashed; with a satin skin so thin and glossy that even
+the lightest hand would cause it to quiver to the touch; where pride and
+fire and royal blood seemed to urge a trial of their powers; and I have
+thought: "You are capable of passing anything on the track and coming
+under the wire triumphant and victorious; or you might fulfil your
+prophecy equally well by falling dead in your first heat, with the red
+blood gushing from those thin nostrils. We can be sure of nothing until
+you are tried, but it is a quivering delight to look at you and to share
+your impatience and to wonder what you will do."
+
+Occasionally I see women who affect me in the same way--idealists, capable
+of being wounded through their sensitiveness by things which we ordinary
+mortals accept philosophically; capable also of greater heights of
+happiness and lower depths of misery, but of suffering most through being
+misunderstood. To this class Rachel and Louise belong. Rachel, in
+Percival, has reached a haven where she rides at anchor, sheltered from
+such storms as had hitherto almost engulfed her, and growing more
+heroically beautiful in character day by day. Poor Louise is still at sea,
+with a great storm brewing. How hard, how terribly hard, to talk to
+Charlie Hardy about her, when, after the solemnity of an engagement tie
+between them, he was capable of misunderstanding, not only her, but the
+whole situation so blindly! But what a calamity it would be if Louise
+should marry him!
+
+"Go on, Ruth. Say something, do. I imagine all sorts of things while you
+just sit there looking at me so solemnly. I realize that I am in a tight
+place. I did hope that you could see some way out of it for me; but I
+know, by the way you act, that you think I ought to give up Frankie--dear
+little girl!--and marry Louise, and by Jove! if you say it's the handsome
+thing to do, I'll do it."
+
+This still more effectually closed my lips. He so evidently thought that
+he was being heroic. He added rather reluctantly, "I must say that I
+suppose Frankie Taliaferro would get over it much more easily than Louise
+could."
+
+"Charlie," I said slowly, "you don't mean to be, but you are too conceited
+to live. I wonder that you haven't died of conceit before this."
+
+Charlie's blond face flushed and he looked deeply offended.
+
+"Conceited!" he burst out. "Why, Ruth, there isn't a fellow going who has
+a worse opinion of himself than I have. I don't see what either of those
+girls sees in me to love, I tell you. I am not proud of it. I wish to
+Heaven they didn't love me. _I_ haven't made them."
+
+"'Haven't made them'! Yes, you have. You are just the kind of man who
+does. You say pretty things even to old women, and bring them shawls and
+put footstools under their feet with the air of a lover. And if you only
+hand a woman an ice you look unutterable things. You have a dozen girls at
+a time in that indefinite state when three words to any one of them would
+engage you to her, and she would think you had deliberately led up to it;
+whereas all the past had been idle admiration on your part, and it was a
+rose in her hair or a moment in the conservatory that upset you, and there
+you are. Oh, these girls, these girls, who believe every time a man at a
+ball says he loves them that he means it! Why can't you be satisfied to
+have some of them friends, and not all sweethearts?"
+
+"It can't be done. I've tried and I know. Sallie tried it and it married
+her off--a thing not one of her flirtations could have accomplished. This
+is the way it goes. You arrange with a girl not to have any nonsense, but
+just to be good friends. You take her to the theatre, drive with her,
+dance with her. Soon her chaperon begins to eye you over. Fellows at the
+club drop a remark now and then. You explain that you are only friends,
+and they wink at you and you feel foolish. Next time they see you with
+her, they look knowing, and you see, to your horror, that the girl is
+blushing. Evidently she is under fire too. Still, you keep it up. She
+makes a better comrade than any of the men. You feel that you are out of
+mischief when you are with her. She keeps you alert. You never are bored,
+but really you are not as fond of her as you were of your college chum
+even. She treats you a trifle, just a trifle, differently from all the
+other men. This goes to your head. You begin to make a little difference
+yourself. You take her hand when you say good-night, just as you would one
+of the men. But it is not the same. The girl has needles or electricity in
+her hand. You can't let go. You begin to feel that friendship, too, can be
+dangerous. Next day you send her flowers, with some lines about the
+delights of friendship. She accepts both beautifully, but you have a
+guilty feeling that you did it to remind her. She does not seem to
+understand that there had been any necessity. Still, you feel rather mean,
+and to make up for it you try to atone by your manner. She is looking
+perfectly lovely. She wears white. You particularly like white. She knows
+it. You think perhaps she wore it to please you. _How_ pretty she is! You
+lose your head a little and say something. She looks innocent and
+surprised. She 'thought we were just friends. Surely,' she says, 'you
+have said so often enough. Why change? Friends are so much more
+comfortable.' She wants to 'stay a friend.' You are miserable at the idea,
+although that morning it was just what you wanted. You were even afraid
+she would think differently. What an ass a man can be! You fling
+discretion to the winds and tell her--you tell her--well, you go home
+engaged to her. That's how a friendship ends. Bah!"
+
+"A realistic recital. From hearsay, of course! The next day the man wishes
+he were well out of it, I suppose?"
+
+"Not quite so soon as that, but soon enough."
+
+"Ah, I wish you knew, Charlie Hardy, how all this sounds even to such a
+good friend of yours as I am. It is such men as you who lower the standard
+of love and of men in general. Do you suppose a girl who has had an
+encounter with you, and seen how trifling you are, can have her first
+beautiful faith to give to the truly grand hero when he comes? No; it has
+been bruised and beaten down by what you call 'a little flirtation,' and
+possibly her unwillingness to trust a second time may force her true
+lover into withdrawing his suit. How dare men and women trifle with the
+Shekinah of their lives? And when it has been dulled by abuse, what a
+pitiful Shekinah it appears to the one who approaches it reverently,
+confidently expecting it to be the uncontaminated holy of holies! It is
+this sort of thing which makes infidels about love."
+
+Charlie began to look sulky, feeling, I suppose, that I was piling the
+sins of the universe on to his already burdened shoulders.
+
+"I dare say you are right, but what am I to do?"
+
+"There is only one thing for you to do, but I know you won't do it."
+
+"Yes, I will. Only try me," he said, brightening up.
+
+"You must go and tell Louise that you are in love with Frankie
+Taliaferro."
+
+"Tell Louise? Why, Ruth, it would kill her. You don't know her. She
+wouldn't let me off. You don't know how a girl in love feels. Ruth, were
+you ever in love?"
+
+"That is not a pertinent question," I said. "It comes quite near being
+the other thing. But let me tell you, Charlie Hardy, I know Louise King,
+and it won't kill her. You know 'men have died and worms have eaten them,
+but not for love.' That might be said of women." (I didn't know, Tabby,
+whether it might or might not. I couldn't afford to let him see my doubts,
+if I had any.) "We don't die as easily as you men seem to think."
+
+"But is this your view of what is right?" he asked. "I was sure you would
+counsel the other. I've been fortifying myself to give Frankie up and
+marry Louise, and, with all due respect to you, I must say that I think
+you are wrong here. You must remember that my honor is involved."
+
+"Bother your honor!" I cried explosively. Charlie seemed rather pleased
+than otherwise at my inelegance. "I am tired to death of hearing men fall
+back on nonsense about their honor. I notice they seldom feel called upon
+to refer to it unless they are involved in something disreputable."
+
+Charlie straightened up at this and settled his coat with an indignant
+jerk.
+
+"I hardly think," he began stiffly, "that I am involved in anything
+disreputable in being engaged to Miss King."
+
+"What are a man's debts of honor?" I went on with growing excitement.
+"Gaming debts and things he would scarcely care to explain to the public
+at large. Your honor is involved in this, is it? And you must save your
+honor at all hazards, no matter who goes to the wall in the process! I
+suppose if you made the rash vow that, if your horse won the race, you
+would cut your mother's head off, while you were still in the flush of
+victory, you would seize your bowie-knife and go to work! No? Oh, yes,
+Charlie. Your honor, as you call it, is involved. I insist upon it. You
+must do it. Oh, I am going too far, am I? Not one step further than men go
+in the mire whither their honor leads them. Debts of honor, indeed! Debts
+of dishonor I call them. So do most women."
+
+"Yes, but, Ruth," interrupted Charlie uneasily, "an engagement is
+different. I don't dispute what you say in regard to gambling debts--"
+
+"You can't," I murmured rebelliously.
+
+"--but a man can't, with any decency, ask a girl to release him when he
+has sought her out and asked her to marry him."
+
+"Perhaps not with decency. But it is a place where this precious honor of
+yours might come into play. It would at least be honorable."
+
+"There isn't a man who would agree with you," he cried.
+
+"Nor is there a woman who would agree with you," I retorted. But both of
+us stretched things a little at this point.
+
+He thought over the situation for a few minutes, then said,
+
+"You understand that, in my opinion, Louise loves me the best."
+
+"The best--yes. For that very reason you must not marry her. O Charlie!
+try to understand," I pleaded. "She must love the best when she loves at
+all. She has loved the best in you, until she has put it out of your reach
+ever to attain to it. It would not be fair to the girl, it would be
+robbing her, to accept all this beautiful love for you, and give her in
+return--your love for another girl. Do you suppose for an instant that
+you could continue to deceive her after you were married? Supposing she
+found out afterwards, then what? She might die of that. I cannot say. It
+would be enough to kill her. But not if you are honest and manly enough to
+tell her in time to save her self-respect. You are powerless to touch it
+now. You could kill it if you were married."
+
+"Honest and manly enough to confess myself a rascal? I don't see where it
+would come in," he replied gloomily.
+
+"It is the nearest approach to it which lies in your power."
+
+"If the girls' places were only reversed now! I could tell Frankie that I
+had been false to our engagement and had fallen in love with Louise. She
+would know how it was herself. But Louise couldn't comprehend such things.
+I believe she has been as true to me, even in thought, as if she had been
+my wife. How can I tell her?"
+
+"The more you say, the plainer you make it your duty. I say, how can you
+not tell her?"
+
+"I might go away for a year and not let her know and not write to her.
+Then she would know without my having to tell her."
+
+"You wouldn't stand it if a man called you a coward. Don't try my woman's
+friendship for you too far. You insult me by offering such a suggestion."
+
+"Gently, gently, Ruth. I beg your pardon." (Rachel was right in saying he
+would not quarrel. I wished he would. I never wanted to quarrel so much in
+my life.)
+
+"I am a coward," he broke down at last. "I'll spare you the trouble of
+saying so. But oh, Ruth, you don't know how I dread a scene! You go and
+tell her. I can't. I couldn't even write it."
+
+"How unselfish you are! Spare yourself at all hazards, Charlie, for of
+course it was not your fault that things got into such a state."
+
+"Oh, Ruth, don't!"
+
+"Well, I won't. But do you realize how I should insult her if I went to
+her? It's bad enough for you, the man she loves, to tell her. From any one
+else it would be unforgivable. Do as you like. You promised to follow my
+advice. Take it and do as you will with it. But I will guarantee the
+result if you will do as I say. Come, Charlie. One hour, and it will all
+be over, and you can marry Frankie."
+
+It was like getting him into a dentist's chair. I felt a wholesome
+self-contempt as I thus sugar-coated his pill, but he was so abject in his
+misery.
+
+Charlie brightened up perceptibly at the alluring prospect. He shut his
+eyes to the dark path which led to happiness, and was revelling in its
+glory.
+
+"Ruth, you dear thing! I don't see how I ever can thank you enough," he
+said, taking both my hands in his. "I ought to have stuck to you, that's
+what I ought to have done. You would have kept me straight. Do you know, I
+used to be awfully in love with you. You really were my first love. I was
+about eighteen then. You don't look a day older, and you are just as sweet
+as ever."
+
+I laughed outright.
+
+"What did I tell you?" I cried. "You can't help making love to save your
+life. Your gratitude is getting you into deeper water every minute. Go
+home, do. Run for your life, or you'll be engaged to me too. _Then_
+who'll help you out?"
+
+He acted upon my suggestion and went hastily.
+
+Tabby, did you ever? He never was in love with me, never on this earth.
+Whatever possessed him to say such a thing? He loses his head, that's what
+he does. I hope he won't meet any woman younger than his grandmother
+before he gets home, or he might propose to her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My heart stands still when I think of Louise King.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+                     THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND
+
+     "It is not true that love makes all things easy, but it makes us
+     choose what is difficult."
+
+
+Across the street, in plain view from my window, has come to dwell a
+little brown wren of a woman with her five babies. The house, hitherto
+inconspicuous among its finer neighbors, at the advent of the Mayo family
+suddenly bloomed into a home. The lawn blossomed with living flowers and
+the windows framed faces which shamed, in their dimpling loveliness, the
+painted cherubs on the wall.
+
+It was a delight to see Nellie Mayo in the midst of her children. Hers
+were all babies, such dear, amiable, kissable babies, each of whom seemed
+personally anxious to prove to every one how much sweetness one small
+morsel of humanity could hold. But with five of them, bless me! the house
+was one glowing radiance of sunshine, in which the little mother lived and
+loved, until they absorbed each other's personality, and it was difficult
+to think of one without the others.
+
+Sometimes in a street-car or on the elevated train I have seen women who I
+felt convinced had little babies at home. It is because of the peculiar
+look they wear, the rapturous mother-look, which has its home in the eyes
+during the most helpless period of babyhood--an indescribable look, in
+which dreams and prophecy and heaven are mingled. It is the sweetest look
+which can come to a woman's face, saying plainly, "Oh, I have such a
+secret in my heart! Would that every one knew its rapture with me!" It
+wears off sooner or later, but with Nellie Mayo, whether because there
+always was a baby, or because each was welcomed with such a world of love,
+the look remained until it seemed a part of her face.
+
+Long ago we knew her as an unworldly girl, whose peachblow coloring gave
+to her face its chief beauty, although her plaintive blue eyes and smooth
+brown hair called forth a certain protective faith in her simplicity and
+goodness. Sometimes girlhood is a mysterious chaos of traits, out of which
+no one can foretell what sort of cosmos will follow, or whether there will
+be a cosmos at all or only intelligent chaos to the end. But this girl
+seemed to carry her future in her face. She was a little mother to us all.
+It was a tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a
+poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged
+perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her
+unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as
+she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie's capacity for
+aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie's swifter brain
+and willing feet; for to see any one's unspoken need was to her like a
+thrilling cry for help, and was the only thing which could completely draw
+her from her shy reserve. The chief reason she was popular was that she
+had a faculty of keeping herself in the shadow. You never knew where she
+was until you wanted her, when she would seem to rise out of the earth to
+your side. But, in spite of your intense gratitude at the moment, you
+really found yourself taking her as a matter of course. She was one of
+those who are fully appreciated only when they are dead, and who then call
+forth the bitterest remorse that we have not made them know in life how
+dear they were and how painfully necessary to our happiness.
+
+It is rather a sad commentary upon those same girls, who accepted Nellie's
+assistance most readily, to record that, when they were launched into
+society and were deep in the mysteries of full-fledged young-ladyhood,
+little Nellie Maddox was seldom invited to their most fashionable
+gatherings, but came in, at first, before their memory grew too rusty,
+for the simpler luncheons and teas.
+
+This is not a history of intentional or systematic neglect, but a mere
+statement of the way things drifted along. Not one of the girls would
+wilfully have omitted her, if she had been in the habit of being asked;
+but it was easy to let her name slip when all the rest did it, and so
+gradually it came to pass that we seldom saw her. Then she married Frank
+Mayo, who would not be offended if he heard a newsboy refer to him as "a
+gent," or a maid-servant describe him as "a pretty man." Of such a one it
+is scarcely necessary to add that he was selfish, inordinately conceited,
+and, to complete the description, a trifle vulgar. He never suspected his
+wife's cleverness nor appreciated her worship. It almost made me doubt her
+cleverness to see how she idolized him, but this instance went far towards
+proving that love, with some women, is entirely an affair of the heart. It
+irritates Rachel to hear any one say so. She says it argues ignorance of a
+nice distinction in terms, and that when the brain is not concerned it
+should be called by a baser name.
+
+I doubt if she could have brought herself to say so if she had been
+looking into Nellie Mayo's blue eyes, which looked tired and a little less
+blue than as I remembered them. They had pathetic purple shadows under
+them, which told of sleepless nights with the babies, and there were fine
+lines around her mouth; but her light-brown hair was as smooth and her
+dress as plain and neat as ever.
+
+It was like watching a nest of birds. I felt my own love expand to see the
+wealth of affection Nellie had for her precious family. Her unselfish zeal
+never flagged. She flitted from one want to another as naturally as she
+breathed and with as little consciousness of the process. Her household
+machinery ran no more smoothly than many another's, but Nellie met and
+surmounted all obstacles with an unruffled brow. Her outward calm was the
+result of some great inward peace. She simply had developed naturally from
+the girl we had known before we grew up and went away to be "finished by
+travel."
+
+Nothing could go so wrongly, no nerves throb so pitilessly, that they
+prevented her meeting her husband with the smile reserved for him alone.
+None of the babies could call it forth. When he came home tired, Nellie
+fluttered around him making him comfortable, as if life held for her no
+sweeter task.
+
+Being a woman myself, and having no husband to wait upon until it became
+natural, I used to feel somewhat vexed that he never served her, instead
+of receiving the best of everything so complacently. He never seemed to
+realize that she might be tired or needed a change of routine. That
+household revolved around him. Of course it was partly Nellie's fault that
+he had fallen into the habit of receiving everything and making no return.
+Fallen into it? No. With that kind of a man, an only son, and considered
+by the undiscriminating to be good-looking, his wife had only to take up
+his mother's unfinished work of spoiling him. It is true that these
+unselfish women inculcate a system of selfishness in their families which
+often works their ruin. They rob the children of their rightful virtue of
+self-sacrifice.
+
+So Nellie idolized her husband. He was her king, and the king could do no
+wrong. She taught the babies a sweet system of idolatry, which so far had
+been harmless. He cared very little for children; so, when yearning to
+express their love for the hero of all their mother's stories, with their
+little hearts almost bursting with affection, their love was most
+frequently tested by being obliged to keep away from their idol in order
+"not to bother him" with their kisses. Fortunately these same withheld
+kisses were dear to Nellie, and she never was too busy to accept and
+return them. Thus they never knew how busy she was. She was sure to be
+about some sweet task for others. If she ever rested, it was with the
+cosiest corner occupied by somebody else.
+
+I wonder what will happen when, in heaven, one of these selfless mothers
+is led in triumph to a solid gold throne, all lined with eider-down
+cushions, where she can take the rest she never had on earth. Won't she
+stagger back against the glittering walls of the New Jerusalem and say,
+"Not for me. Not for me. Surely it must be for my husband?" But there,
+where places are appointed, she will not be allowed to give it up--which
+may make her miserable even in heaven. Ah me, these mothers! It brings
+tears to my eyes to think of their unending love, which wraps around and
+shelters and broods over every one, whose helplessness clings to their
+help, whose need depends upon their exhaustless supply. Theirs it is to
+bear the invisible but princely crest, "Ich dien."
+
+Nellie had no time for literary classes. Her music, of which we used to
+predict great things, had resolved itself into lullabies and kindergarten
+ditties for the children. She seldom found an opportunity to visit even
+me. So it was I who went there and saw how her life was literally bound by
+the four walls of that little brown house; yet I never felt any
+inclination to pity her, because she was so contented. I knew of others
+who seemed happier--that is, the word seemed to describe them better--but
+none of them possessed Nellie Mayo's placid content.
+
+Still, I did not like her husband. He was not of Nellie's fine fibre. He
+was dull, while she was delightfully clever. His eyes were rather good,
+but he had a way of throwing expressive glances at me, as he talked upon
+trifling subjects, which disgusted me. I reluctantly made up my mind that
+he considered himself a "lady-killer," but I felt outraged that he should
+waste his ammunition upon me. I tried to be amused by it, when I found
+indignation was useless with him. I used to call him "Simon Tappertit" to
+myself, until I once forgot and referred to him as "Simon" before Nellie,
+when I gave up being amused and let it bore me naturally. I always had
+treated him with unusual consideration for Nellie's sake, and even had
+tried genuinely to admire him because it gave her such pleasure; but when
+I discovered that the jackanapes took it as an evidence that he was
+progressing in my esteem, I did not know whether to laugh or cry with
+vexation.
+
+All at once, without any explanation or preface, Sallie began calling upon
+Mrs. Mayo and sending her flowers from her conservatories. Often when
+Sallie came to see me her coachman had orders to be at Mrs. Mayo's
+disposal, to take the children for a drive, while Sallie and I sat and
+talked about everything except why she had embarked upon this venture. I
+was sure there was something in it which must be kept out of sight,
+because Sallie never would talk about them.
+
+I noticed that whenever Frank was away from home--which grew more and more
+frequent--an invitation was sure to come for the Mayos from Sallie. But
+Nellie never accepted without him, whether from pride or timidity I could
+not then determine, and all Sallie's efforts to persuade her were
+unavailing.
+
+It was such an unusual proceeding in Mrs. Payson Osborne to seek out any
+one that it excited my wonder. But she was not to be balked by anything;
+moreover, I had great faith in her motives, which were sound and good,
+even if her plans of carrying them out inclined to the frivolous.
+
+But all at once her frivolity seemed to reach a climax. She issued
+invitations for a lawn fête, to be followed by a very private, very select
+dinner, after which came the cotillon. She had decorators from New York,
+and otherwise ordered the most extravagant setting for her entertainment.
+This might not seem unusual to every one, but with us, who are accustomed
+to extracting our enjoyment from one party at a time, this seemed rather a
+superb affair. Pet Winterbotham was almost wild with delight.
+
+"Only think," she cried, "she has asked Jack and me to lead the cotillon!
+Isn't that sweet of her? Oh, I do think she is the dearest thing! Though I
+must say I'd rather have been asked to the dinner. That's going to be
+perfectly elegant. I heard it was to be given for somebody, but I don't
+know who it could be. It might be for Frankie Taliaferro. Mrs. Osborne has
+asked her to come up for it."
+
+Pet's remarks rushed on until I soon found myself carried along the tide
+of her enthusiasm, which she assured me was shared by every girl in town.
+
+I shall not attempt to describe Sallie's success. The weather, the people,
+fortune itself, was in her favor, and the whole afternoon was admirable. I
+confess, however, that it was with some slight curiosity that I awaited
+the dinner.
+
+Sallie's cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone with an unusual brilliancy
+as she greeted us, but the proverbial feather would have felled any one of
+her guests when Payson offered his arm to Mrs. Frank Mayo, who rose out of
+a shadowy corner in a high-throated gown and led us to the dining-room. I
+caught Sallie's eye as she laid her hand on Frank Mayo's arm, and she gave
+me a comical look, half imploring, half defiant.
+
+I was guilty of wondering if Sallie had been demented when she planned
+that dinner-table, for this is the way we found ourselves:
+
+Next to Frank Mayo came Alice Asbury, encased in freezing dignity. Brian
+Beck, at his worst, supported her on the other hand. After Brian were
+Louise King and Charlie Hardy, both looking to my practised eyes
+exceedingly stiff and uncomfortable. I had no time to wonder if the blow
+had fallen, in casting a glance at the other guests. Nellie Mayo was
+admirably situated between Charlie Hardy and Payson Osborne, both of whom
+were deference itself to her. The difference in her simple attire from the
+full dress all around her in no wise disturbed her unworldly spirit. She
+looked with quiet admiration at the handsome shoulders of Louise and
+Rachel, evidently never dreaming that the babies' mother might be
+expected to follow their example in dress.
+
+[Illustration: Seating plan.]
+
+Grace Beck, sitting by Norris Whitehouse, would have an excellent
+opportunity of cementing or breaking off the prospective match, which as
+yet was unannounced, between her sister and his nephew. Rachel would be
+polite, but not wildly entertaining, to Asbury; but he could count on me
+to be decent to him, while I snatched crumbs of intellectual comfort from
+Percival on my other hand. But Sallie had placed the funereal Clinton
+Frost between that rattle-pated Frankie Taliaferro and her lively self,
+probably with the laudable intention of seeing whether his face would be
+permanently disfigured by a smile. Nor was the poor wretch out of Brian
+Beck's reach, but was made the objective point of Brian's liveliest
+sallies, the hero of his most piquant and impossible stories, which
+convulsed us until I felt sure that the irritated Mr. Frost must cherish
+a secret but lively desire to punch his head. Possibly Brian was the only
+one who thoroughly enjoyed himself at that ill-starred dinner, for he is
+keen on the scent of a precarious situation which is liable to involve
+everybody in total collapse. In this instance he seemed to snuff the
+battle from afar and stirred up all the slumbering elements of discord
+with unctuous satisfaction; and if it had not been for the wicked twinkle
+in his Irish blue eyes, which none of his victims could withstand, it
+might have resulted seriously. He gayly rallied Charlie Hardy on his
+flirtations; predicted seeing him yet brought up with a round turn in a
+breach-of-promise case; seemed highly edified by Frankie Taliaferro's
+efforts to appear unconcerned at these pleasantries; railed openly at
+Clinton Frost's being so unresponsive to the general mirth around him;
+shivered visibly at that gentleman's icy retorts; playfully called
+attention to his wife's endeavors to frown him into silence; and, in spite
+of Sallie's angry glances, really saved her dinner from proving a dismal
+failure. Indeed, the cases were too real, and too much genuine misery was
+concealed behind impassive faces, not to prove a dangerous situation, the
+tension of which was relieved by Brian's extravagant nonsense. Percival
+and Norris Whitehouse were sincerely amused by the wit in which Brian
+clothed his droll remarks. But the greatest misfortune of the dinner-giver
+was realized in Frank Mayo, the man who thinks he can tell a good story.
+The Mayos were so new to all of us that this peculiarity was not suspected
+until Brian discovered it and dragged it forth. He persuaded Frank to
+talk, listened with absorbing interest to the flattest tales, encouraged
+him if he flagged, and laughed until the tears came if he by chance forgot
+or slurred a point.
+
+However, no one seemed to think that there was anything seriously amiss
+except Sallie, who is a human barometer when she has guests. She knows by
+instinct when they are or are not being entertained. Nor was her tact at
+fault in seating the people, for I was the only one laden with almost
+unbearable knowledge, and I fell asleep that night thinking that possibly
+the situation was not so unusual as it appeared to me. I dare say plenty
+of dinners are given with just as many unsuspected trap-doors to
+sensationalism.
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                          THE PATHOS OF FAITH
+
+     "To him who is shod the whole world is covered with leather."
+
+
+The next afternoon I was resting and thinking over the brilliancy of the
+Payson Osborne entertainment, when Sallie came in, dressed from head to
+foot in black. There was not a suspicion of white at wrist or throat. I
+was too startled to ask a question until her burst of laughter relieved
+me.
+
+"You poor thing!" she cried, "did I frighten you? But I _am_ in mourning;
+yes, truly, for my dinner-party. Ruth, Ruth, what was the matter with it?"
+
+"Why, nothing. It was exquisitely served, and oh, Sallie, your lawn fête
+and the cotillon were beautiful. They were perfect. Truly, you do give the
+most successful entertainments in town."
+
+"Certainly--why shouldn't I," said Sallie sharply, "when I have never done
+anything, _anything_ all my life but go to parties and study how to give
+them? Oh, Ruth, dear, I do get so tired of it all. But," taking on a
+brisker tone, "all the more reason why I should never give such a sad
+affair as that dinner. That dinner, Ruth, was what Brian Beck calls a
+howling failure. Payson never criticises anything that I do, but even he
+came to me quite gingerly this morning, after I had read what the papers
+had to say about it, and said, 'My dear child, what was the matter with
+your tea-party?' Now, let us admit the success of the other two, and weep
+a little in a friendly way over the 'tea-party.'"
+
+"I had a lovely time--" I began, but Sallie interrupted me.
+
+"Hypocrite!" she cried vehemently. "You know you didn't. Your eyes were as
+big as turkey platters with apprehension."
+
+"My dear Sallie," I expostulated.
+
+"Don't you dare put on airs with me, then," she said mutinously. "Now,
+what ailed them all? It couldn't have been the advent of the Mayos. I've
+launched more ticklish craft than they. Nor could it have been that
+abominable Brian Beck, who would spoil Paradise and be the utter ruin of
+a respectable funeral. Every one seemed to conspire to make my dinner a
+failure."
+
+"Oh, Sallie, I think Percival especially exerted himself. He was in his
+most exquisite mood."
+
+"Oh, Percival, of course. He must have suspected that something was going
+wrong. Did you ever notice, when he talks, how Rachel turns her head away?
+But you can see the color creep up into her face. She is too proud and shy
+to let people see how much she cares for him. But when _she_ speaks
+Percival looks at her with all his eyes, and positively leans forward so
+that he shall not miss a word. I love to watch those two. Sometimes when I
+have been with them I feel as if I had been to church."
+
+"Then, too, Payson's manner to Nellie Mayo was the most chivalric thing I
+ever saw. He treated her as if the best in the land were not too good for
+her."
+
+"Nor is it," said Sallie warmly.
+
+"I'm glad you think so. What a sweet, unworldly spirit she has! Almost any
+woman would have been distressed because of her gown; but she was so
+superior to her dress, with that uplifted face of hers, that I felt
+ashamed to think of it myself. You gave her a rare pleasure last night,
+for she never meets clever men and women. The Percivals and Mr. Whitehouse
+delighted her, and you saw how well she sustained her part of the
+conversation. You see she thinks, if she doesn't have time to study. She
+was particularly fortunate in having Payson to take her out, for he has a
+faculty of putting people at their ease. Do you know, Sallie, Payson
+Osborne has come out wonderfully since you married him. He is more
+thoughtful, more considerate, and his manners always have been _so_ good.
+I declare, last night I caught him looking at you in a way which made me
+quite fond of him."
+
+"I'm fond of him myself," said Sallie candidly. "He undoubtedly is a dear
+old thing, and he is tremendously good to me. By the way, did you notice
+how red Frankie Taliaferro's eyes were last night? She had the toothache,
+poor girl. It came on quite suddenly just before dinner, and it alarmed me
+for fear she couldn't appear. Just before dinner I was naming over the way
+the people were to go in, and I said that I had to put engaged people
+together and separate husbands and wives, after the manner of real life,
+and Payson asked if I was sure Louise King and Charlie Hardy were engaged,
+and I said yes, although it never had been announced, and just then
+Frankie burst into tears. It was a suspicious time for crying, especially
+as that egregious flirt had paid her a great deal of attention; but
+Frankie would tell _me_, I am sure, and then she really had been to the
+dentist's that morning. So I gave her something for it which she said
+cured it. I was so vexed at her for making her eyes red, for her blue
+dress brought it out. If she had been crying over the other, she might
+have spared her tears, for I don't believe Charlie and Louise are engaged.
+I think they have quarrelled, for when Charlie offered his arm to Louise,
+she looked up with that way she has of throwing her head back, and I
+declare to you, Ruth, I saw, I positively saw, forked lightnings shoot
+from her eyes. They blazed so I was afraid they would set his tie on fire.
+As for Charlie, he turned first green, then magenta, then a rich and
+lively purple. I give you my word they did not speak to each other during
+that dinner, nor would Louise stay to the cotillon. Charlie danced it with
+Frankie. Nice state of affairs, isn't it?"
+
+I felt myself grow weak. But Sallie proceeded gayly: "Then you know how
+hard I have tried to propitiate those miserable Asburys. I declare, I
+think Alice might meet me half way. Perhaps she didn't like being seated
+between Frank Mayo and Brian Beck, but both she and that awful Frost man
+sat as stiff and unsmiling as if they had swallowed curtain-poles by the
+dozen." Sallie does not mind an extra word or two to strengthen a simile.
+I tried to imagine Alice and Mr. Frost gulping down the articles Sallie
+mentioned, but mine was no match for Sallie's nimble fancy and I gave it
+up. "I do hope that Pet Winterbotham will not marry that man. I should as
+soon see her led to the altar by a satin-lined casket. I had to invite him
+when I found that Frankie could come. Wasn't Brian Beck dreadful, and
+didn't you think you would go to sleep under Frank Mayo's stories? And
+didn't Grace Beck's airs with Mr. Whitehouse amuse you? Oh, she will hold
+that head of hers so high if Pet marries Jack. How bored Asbury looked,
+didn't he? So selfish of him not to pretend to be pleased. Even Rachel
+vexed me by not being nicer to Asbury. I declare, Ruth, I was so irritated
+at the queer way every one acted, I felt as if it would be a relief to
+make faces at them, instead of beaming on them the hospitable beam of a
+hostess. I wonder how they would have liked it."
+
+"They might have considered it rather unconventional perhaps."
+
+Sallie smiled absent-mindedly, pressed her hand to her flushed cheek,
+looked over towards the Mayo house, and then, meeting my inquiring glance,
+dropped her eyes in confusion.
+
+"Well," I said tentatively.
+
+Sallie leaned back in her chair, put her hands behind her head, and closed
+her eyes.
+
+"I wonder," she said dreamily, "why I ever attempt to do things. Why can't
+people let me alone, and why don't I let them alone? Most of all, why do I
+ever try to keep a secret?"
+
+I knew then that she had been rattling on because her mind was full of
+something else. I don't believe she knew half that she had said. Presently
+to my surprise I saw a tear steal down her cheek.
+
+"O Sallie!" I exclaimed, now really worried, "what is it?"
+
+"I'll tell you, Ruth, for you are the only one who seems really to know
+and love that dear little Nellie Mayo and those blessed babies. Ruth,
+there is a Damocles sword hanging over that nest of birds, and it is
+liable to fall at any moment. Oh, it has weighed on my heart like lead
+ever since I discovered the secret. I know you don't like Frank Mayo, but
+you will despise him when I tell you the mischief he is up to, and that
+poor little wife of his trusting him as if he were an archangel. Oh, he
+is common, Ruth, and horrid, and if it is ever found out it will kill
+Nellie. But he is carrying on dreadfully with a soubrette in New York. He
+is wasting his money on her--and you know he has none to spare--and seems
+to be infatuated with her; while she, of course, is only using him to
+advertise herself. In fact, that is how I found it out. Payson is in a
+syndicate which is trying to buy one of those up-town theatres in New York
+and turn it into something else; I forget just what they want to do with
+it, but any way, he came in contact with the manager of the theatre where
+this woman was playing. He gave them a dinner and afterwards they occupied
+his box, and while this woman was on the stage her manager told how some
+man was causing nightly sensations by the flowers he sent her, and he said
+that he--her manager--thought he would have it written up for the papers
+to advertise her before she started out on her tour. He said the man was
+making a fool of himself, but the actress didn't care, and when he pointed
+out the fellow to them, Payson saw to his horror that it was Frank Mayo.
+He didn't say a word before the other gentlemen, but the next day he went
+to the manager and begged him to advertise the woman in some other way. He
+told him who Frank was and all about his poor little wife and the
+children, and the manager, who seems to be a good hearted man, said it was
+a shame and promised not to allow it. He even went so far as to offer to
+speak to the actress herself and request her to refuse to be interviewed
+on the subject. So Payson came home quite relieved. But the next time he
+saw the manager Payson asked him how things were going, and he said worse
+than ever as far as Frank himself was concerned, and he added that when he
+mentioned the subject to the actress she tossed her head and said Mayo
+must take care of himself.
+
+"Then I thought I would do what I could to introduce him into society
+here, for you know he is ambitious in that line, and perhaps I might get
+him away from the creature. So I gave that whole thing yesterday for the
+Mayo family, with what result you know, except that I haven't told you
+that the presumptuous dolt made love mawkishly to me all the evening.
+Yes, actually! Did you ever hear of such impertinence? Oh, the man is
+simply insufferable, Ruth.
+
+"Now, what I am constantly afraid of is that it will get into the papers
+after all. I read them, I fairly study them, so that it shall not escape
+me; but, if it does come out, what shall we do for Nellie? It will break
+her heart."
+
+I looked at Sallie with gnawing conscience that I had ever called her
+lawn fête the climax of frivolity. The dear little soul! who would have
+suspected that she had such a worthy motive for her ball? But, do you
+know, sometimes in fashionable life we catch a glimpse of the
+simple-minded, homely kindliness which we are taught to believe exists
+only among horny-handed farmers, rough miners, and hardy mountaineers.
+
+"Sallie, dear child," I said, "I beg your pardon for not knowing how noble
+you are."
+
+"Noble? I? Sallie Cox? Now, nobody except Payson ever hinted at such a
+thing, and I hushed him up instantly. No, Ruth, it was nothing. I dare say
+Rachel or you would have thought of some grand project which would have
+been effectual, but _I_ couldn't think of anything to do but to tickle his
+vanity by making him the guest of honor at the best affair of the season."
+
+"Indeed, I think neither Rachel nor I could have thought of anything so
+sure to captivate a shallow mortal like Frank Mayo."
+
+"Set a thief to catch a thief," said Sallie merrily. "I'm shallow myself,
+_I_ knew how it would feel to have such a fine thing given for me. My
+dear, if the ball were only fine enough it would cure a broken heart."
+
+"Not if the heart were really broken, Sallie."
+
+"Well, you must admit that it would help _some_," she said whimsically.
+
+And so she went away and left the burden upon me. Then I, too, fell to
+devouring the papers, as I knew Sallie was doing with me. I went more than
+ever to the little brown house which lay in such peril, and I never saw
+Nellie with a paper in her hand that I did not shudder.
+
+At last the thing we so dreaded came to pass. In the evening paper there
+was quite a sensational account of it. Thank Heaven, no name was given;
+but alas, the description of him, of his wife and five little children,
+was unmistakable. I felt as though I had sat still and watched a cat kill
+a bird. It was raining, not hard, but drearily, and the dead leaves
+fluttered against the windows as the chill wind blew them from where they
+clung. I was lonesome, and the autumn evening intensified my feelings. I
+glanced over to where a red glow came from Nellie's windows. I fancied her
+sitting there with the paper in her hand, as she always did in the one
+spare moment of her busy day, with her heart crushed by the news. She
+would be alone, too, for Frank was out of town. Poor child! Poor child! I
+started up and decided to go and see her. If she didn't want me I could
+come back, but what if she did want me and I was not there?
+
+I found her sitting, as I had expected, alone. The paper, with the fatal
+page uppermost, lay in her lap, as if she had read it and laid it down.
+There was only the firelight in the room.
+
+"Come in, dear," she said gladly. "I was just thinking of you and
+wondering if such weather did not make you blue. Sit down here by the
+fire. It was sweet of you to come in the rain."
+
+She searched my distressed face anxiously as she spoke. I made no reply.
+My heart was too full at being comforted when I had come to comfort. As I
+sat on a low stool at her side she seemed to divine my mood, for she drew
+my head against her knee with a mother touch, and threaded my hair with a
+mother hand, and pressed down my eyelids as I have seen her do when she
+puts her baby to sleep. And though she must have felt the tears come, she
+did not appear to know.
+
+"Dear Ruth," she said, "I have been sitting here thinking about you, and
+wondering if you were satisfied, such a loving heart as you have, to face
+the rest of your life without the love you deserve. You won't be vexed
+with me for speaking of it to you, for you know I am so old-fashioned that
+I think love is the only thing in this world worth having. It is all that
+I live for. Of course my children love me, but, until they grow older,
+theirs is only an instinctive love. It isn't like the love of a husband,
+which singles you out of all the other countless women in the world to be
+his and only his forever. There is power enough in that thought to nerve
+the weakest woman to do a giant's task. The mere fact that you are all in
+all, the _only_ woman, to the man you so dearly love, the one person who
+can make his world; when you think that your being away from one meal or
+out of the house when he comes in will make him miss you till his heart
+aches--this will keep down a moan of pain when it is almost beyond
+bearing, for fear it might cause him to suffer with you; it will nerve
+you to stand up and smile into his eyes when you are ready to drop with
+exhaustion. Love, such as a husband's love for his wife, is the most
+precious, the most supporting thing a woman can have. You never hear me
+talk much about my husband, but he is all this and more to me. I cannot
+begin to tell you about it. I read about unhappy marriages--why, I read
+a dreadful thing to-night in the paper, which set me to thinking how safe
+and happy I am, and how thankful I ought to be that I can trust my
+husband so. It was about a man who was unfaithful to his wife, and they
+had five children just as we have. I know such things do occur, but how or
+why is a mystery to me. I hope I am not too hard when I say that in such a
+case it must be the wife's fault. Surely if she had been a good wife, an
+unselfish and loving wife, he could not have been enticed away. Poor
+thing! I wonder how she felt when she heard it. Probably she wouldn't
+believe it. Probably she had too much faith in him. You shake your head.
+Why, Ruth, you dear thing, you don't know anything about it. A wife
+_couldn't_ believe such a thing. Why, I wouldn't believe it if told by an
+angel from heaven. But then my husband is so dear to me. I do sometimes
+wonder if all women care as much for their husbands as I do for mine. Do
+you know, dear, I think about you so much. I know that there have been
+several hearts in which you have reigned, and yet you have not cared. But
+the true love, the right lover, has not come, or you could not have passed
+him by. He is waiting for you; somewhere, somehow, he will come to you, I
+am sure, and you will know then that you have belonged to each other all
+this time; that this love has been coming down the ages from eternity for
+just you two. You will not refuse it then. Why, I could never have refused
+to marry Frank when I found that I was as much to him as he was to me! He
+is so handsome, so good. I shall never cease to thank God that He made him
+turn aside into the quiet places to find me. But, in spite of all this,
+you know I don't think he is perfect. He doesn't care for books as much
+as I wish he did. He has no ear for music, and he cannot tell a story
+straight to save his life, the dear boy! Love does not blind my eyes, but
+this is what it does do. It makes me overlook in him what would annoy me
+in others. When, at that beautiful dinner of Mrs. Osborne's, Frank told
+those stories of his that I've heard for years, I don't think any one
+cared to hear them except Mr. Beck and me. I knew they were not well told,
+but it was my husband who was telling them, and I could listen to his
+voice, even if I couldn't sit next him.
+
+"How the wind blows. Don't you think it has a lonesome sound to-night?
+There isn't a glimmer of light from any of your windows yet, and see what
+a lovely glow this fire casts all through the room. It makes the cold
+walls look warm, and if it makes shadows, it chases them away when it
+blazes its brightest. It is your fault that there is no light in your
+windows, and your fault that you have closed your heart against love. You
+could have the glow that lights my house and my heart if you only would.
+You know, dear, I am not talking to you as a neighbor now or even as a
+friend, but as a woman talks to a woman out of her inmost heart. It is
+only because I love you so and because I have seen you with my babies that
+I know what a home-maker you are. You seem so sad sometimes, and I know
+your heart is wistful if your eyes are not. How can you have the courage
+to shut out love? How can you see the happiness of all your friends and
+not want a share of it yourself? Why do you cry so, my dear? Is there some
+one you love? Has any trouble come between you? No? No? Well, there,
+there! It was selfish of me to show you the way I look at things and to
+try to make you dissatisfied. Never mind. You are stronger than I. I could
+not live without love; I should die. But if you can, it may be that you
+are fulfilling your destiny more nobly than many another who has more of
+what I should choose.
+
+"Oh, must you go? Forgive me if I have said what I should not. Good-night,
+and God bless you, my dear."
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+                       THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE
+
+        "The tallest trees are most in the power of the wind."
+
+
+Last night at the theatre there were theatricals all over the house. My
+eyes followed the play on the stage, but my mind was filled with the farce
+in the next box and with the tragedy in the one opposite.
+
+I was with the Ford-Burkes, and, hearing familiar voices, I pulled aside
+the curtain, and in the next box were the Payson Osbornes, Pet
+Winterbotham, and Jack Whitehouse. Pet thrust her hand over the railing
+and whispered,
+
+"I'm engaged. Put your hand here and feel the size of my ring. You can get
+an idea of it through my glove. I'd take it off and show it to you, only I
+think it would look rather pronounced, don't you?"
+
+"Rather," I assented faintly.
+
+I glanced beyond her into the fresh blue eyes of young Jack Whitehouse,
+and I wondered if the alert, manly young fellow, with his untried but
+inherited capabilities, knew that he had been accepted as a husband
+because his hair curled and he looked "chappie."
+
+"I suppose you have heard the news, haven't you?" she went on.
+
+"Nothing in particular. What news?"
+
+"Look across the house and you will see."
+
+Just entering their box opposite were Louise King and Norris Whitehouse,
+Jack's uncle.
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked, with a wrench at Pet's little hand which made
+her wince.
+
+"It's an engagement. Uncle and nephew engaged the same season. Isn't it
+rich? Think of Louise King being my aunt. She is only twenty-three."
+
+Then they saw us and bowed. I felt faint as my mind adjusted itself to
+this new arrangement. I levelled my glass at them.
+
+Louise, magnificently tall and handsome, looked quite self-contained. She
+is one of the best-bred girls I know, but it required a stronger
+imagination than mine to fathom what mysterious change had transformed
+her from the impulsive, loving creature of Charlie Hardy's story to this
+serene-eyed woman, who had deliberately elected to marry at the funeral
+of her own heart.
+
+As I looked across at her during that long evening, I felt that it was
+impertinent to probe her heart with my wonderings and surmises. I knew
+instinctively just how carefully she was hiding her hurt from all human
+eyes. I knew how her fierce pride was bearing up under the cruelty of it.
+I felt how she had rushed from the humiliation one man had brought her to
+the waiting love of the one who should have been her first choice by the
+divine right of natural selection. This strong man had loved her for
+years, but he would never allow her to imperil either his dignity or her
+own. He was just the man her impulsive, high-strung nature could accept as
+a refuge, beat against and buffet if need be, then learn to appreciate and
+cling to.
+
+I had an impression that he was not totally ignorant of the state of
+affairs. He was older and wiser than she, and capable of the bravery of
+this venture. No, he was not being deceived. I was sure of it. Louise was
+too high minded to attempt it. She would be scornfully honest with him.
+Her scorn would be for herself, not for him, and he had accepted her
+joyfully on these terms. His daring was tempered with prudence, and his
+clear vision doubtless forecast the end. His insight must have shown him
+that, with a girl like Louise, the rebound from the self-disdain to which
+Charlie Hardy's confession must have reduced her would be as intense as
+her humiliation had been, and that her passionate gratitude to the man who
+restored her self-respect would be boundless. Not every man--not even
+every man who loved her--could do this. He must possess strong nerves who
+descends into a volcano. He must have a more unbending will who tames any
+wild thing; but what an intoxicating thrill of pride must come to him who,
+having confidence in his own powers, makes the attempt and succeeds.
+
+Perhaps if Louise had been strong enough to fight this cruel battle out
+with herself as Rachel would have done, and win as Rachel would have won,
+she might have been able to choose differently. She might then, strong in
+her own strength, marry a man of lesser personality, a younger man, and
+they two could have adjusted their lives to each other gradually. Now it
+must be Louise who would be adjusted, and Norris Whitehouse was just the
+man to know the curious fact that the more fiery and impetuous a woman
+is, the more easily, if she is in love, will she mould herself to
+circumstances. The more untamed and unbending she seems, the more helpless
+will she be under the strong excitement of love or grief.
+
+A strong-minded woman is easier to persuade than a weak one. The grander
+the nature the greater its pliability towards truth. The longer I sat and
+gazed into the opposite box the clearer it grew in my mind that the
+suddenness of this venture did not imply rashness, but serene-eyed faith
+only, and such faith would captivate Louise King more than would love. The
+only impossible thing about it to a sceptical Old Maid was that it was
+the man who was proving himself such a hero, and who was upsetting my
+favorite theory that men never understand emotional women. Still, it was
+not difficult to except as unusual a man like Norris Whitehouse, and yet
+have my theory hold good. In imagination I leaped forward to the peaceful
+outcome of this turbulent beginning, and overlooked the way which led to
+it. I found myself hoping, with painful intensity, that this venture in
+which Norris Whitehouse and I had embarked would prove successful. I had
+known and loved Louise King all her life. I had loved her dear mother
+before her, and the beautiful daughterhood of this girl had always touched
+me as the highest and sweetest type I ever had known. I did not want to be
+the one to bring her face to face with her first great sorrow, although I
+dared not interfere to less purpose. For
+
+    "'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
+       And matter enough to save one's own.
+     Yet think of my friend and the burning coals
+       We played with for bits of stone."
+
+They could not know that I had had anything to do with it; yet, if ill
+came of it, I should blame myself all the rest of my life.
+
+Not long afterwards they were married very quietly and went away for a few
+weeks. When they returned I sought Louise with eagerness, and found that
+my fears were not groundless. I tried to think what to do. If it would
+have eased matters, I would willingly have gone to her and confessed that
+I instigated Charlie Hardy's confession. But I felt that the root of the
+matter lay deeper than that, so I said nothing that could be construed
+into an unwelcome knowledge of her affairs.
+
+In the short time which elapsed between their return and the date set for
+their departure for Europe, where they were to stay a year, I saw Louise
+continually. She sought me as if she liked to be with me, although her
+eyes never lost the anxious, hunted expression which you sometimes see in
+the eyes of some trapped wild creature.
+
+It was a raw morning, with a chill wind blowing, when their steamer was to
+sail. Mr. Whitehouse, thinking I might have some last private word to say
+to Louise, skilfully detached everybody else and strolled with them beyond
+earshot, but where his eyes could continually rest upon his wife's face.
+
+As Louise and I walked up and down I took in mine the small hand which
+emerged from the great fur cuff of her boat cloak, and gradually its
+rigidity relaxed under my friendly pressure. I remembered, as I
+occasionally tightened my grasp upon it, that my dear little baby sister
+Lois, who was taken away from us before she outgrew her babyhood, used to
+squeeze my hand in this fashion, and when I asked her what it meant, she
+invariably said, "It means dat it loves you." I wondered if the same
+inarticulate language could be conveyed to poor, suffering Louise.
+Suddenly she turned to me and said,
+
+"You have thrown something gentle, a softness around me this morning. I
+can feel it. What is it, Ruth?"
+
+"I don't know, dear, unless it is my love for you."
+
+"It is something more. Your eyes look into mine as if you knew all about
+it and wished to comfort me."
+
+As I made no answer, she turned and looked down at me from her superb
+height.
+
+"Tell me," she said quite gently; "I shall not be angry. Tell me, _do_ you
+know?"
+
+"Yes, Louise, I know."
+
+She hesitated a moment as if she really had not believed it. Then she said
+slowly,
+
+"If any other person on earth except you had told me that, I should die. I
+could not live in the knowledge. But you--well, your pity is not an insult
+somehow."
+
+"Because it is not pity, Louise," I said steadily. "There is a difference
+between pity and sympathy. One is thrown at you--the other walks with
+you."
+
+She only pressed my hand gratefully. Suddenly she turned and said
+impulsively,
+
+"Then you must know how utterly wretched I am."
+
+Glancing over her shoulder I could see the eyes of her husband fastened
+upon her with an expression which stirred me to put forth my best
+efforts.
+
+Then it came over me how pent-up all this intensity of feeling must be. I
+realized how impossible it would seem to her to speak of it. Taking my
+life in my hand--for I was mortally afraid--I rushed in, after the manner
+of my kind, where angels fear to tread.
+
+"Did you love him then so much?"
+
+The pupils of her eyes enlarged until they were all black with excitement.
+She caught both my hands in hers.
+
+"Only God Himself knows how I loved him," she whispered.
+
+I knew then that all Charlie had said was true, and, weak coward that I
+was, if I could have undone the past, I would have given him back to her.
+I was borne away by a glimpse of such love. O Charlie Hardy! And you cast
+this from you for a pair of blue eyes!
+
+"How came you to love such a weak man?" I asked tremblingly.
+
+"That is what I want to know. How could I? How can girls of my sort love
+so hopelessly beneath us? I've thought and wondered over that question
+until my brain has almost turned, and the only consolation I find is that
+I am not the only one. Other women, cleverer than I, have loved the most
+contemptible of men and have been deceived just as I was. Oh, if he or I
+had only died before I discovered the truth! If I could have mourned him
+honorably and felt that my grief was dignified! But I won't allow myself
+to grieve over him. I tell myself that I am well out of it and that I
+ought to be glad. But instead of gladness there is a dull, miserable ache
+in my heart, which I feel even in my sleep. Not for him; I don't mourn for
+him, but for myself--for my fallen idols and my shattered ideals. What
+will such men have to answer for? I doubt if I ever can believe in
+anything human again."
+
+"Anything _human_," I repeated gladly.
+
+Louise looked down.
+
+"He was not omnipotent," she said huskily. "He ruled my heart only, not
+my soul."
+
+"I suppose you have tried to love your husband?" I said.
+
+"Tried? Oh, Ruth, I have tried so hard! He is so good to me. He knows
+everything. Of course I told him. That was why we were married so
+suddenly. He wished it and urged such excellent reasons, and I had so much
+respect for him and his wisdom in what is best, that I married him. I
+thought I could love him. I always thought that if I didn't love--the
+other one--I should love Norris; but I can't. I believe my power of love
+is gone forever. I feel sometimes as if the best part of me had been
+killed--not died of its own accord, but as if it had been murdered."
+
+"Poor child!" I said. "Why don't you talk this over with your husband?"
+
+"Oh, Ruth, how could I?"
+
+"Well, may I talk to you? Will it hurt you?"
+
+"Nothing that you would say can hurt me, dear."
+
+"Then let me say just this. You have been trying to do in weeks what
+nature would take years to do. In real life you cannot lose your love and
+heal your worse than widowed heart and love anew as you would in private
+theatricals. You have outraged your own delicate sensibilities, but not
+with your husband's consent. He does not want you to try to love him. No
+good man does. He wants you to love him because you can't help
+yourself--because it seems to your heart to be the only natural thing to
+do. 'When the song's gone out of your life, you can't start another while
+it's a-ringing in your ears. It's best to have a bit o' silence, and out
+of that maybe a psalm'll come by and by.'"
+
+"Oh, Ruth, dear Ruth, say that again," she cried, turning towards me with
+tears in her lovely eyes. I repeated it.
+
+"How restful to dare to take 'a bit o' silence'!"
+
+"No one can prevent you doing so but yourself. Mr. Whitehouse married you
+to give you just that, confident that he loved you so much that the psalm
+would come by and by."
+
+"I believe he did," said Louise gently, with color rising in her cheeks.
+
+"Another thing. Don't try not to grieve. Don't repress yourself. It is
+right that you should mourn over your lost ideals. Nothing on earth
+brings more poignant grief than that. You will never get them back. Do not
+expect what is impossible. They were false ideals, none the less beautiful
+and dear to you for being that, but truly they were distorted. You will
+see this some time. You have begun to see it now. You realize that this
+man was in no way what you thought him. You had idealized him, had almost
+crowned him. Now you can't help trying to invest Mr. Whitehouse with the
+same unnamable, invisible qualities. But no man has them. Your husband is
+a thousand times more worthy than the other, yet even he does not deserve
+worship. Let the man do the crowning if you can, although a woman of your
+temperament would find even that difficult--that which the most inane of
+women could accept with calmness and a smile. You have the magnificent
+humility of the truly great. Still it is not appreciated in this world.
+Try resting for a while and let your husband love you."
+
+I knew that I was saying, though perhaps in a different way, things which
+Norris Whitehouse had urged upon her. Not that she said so. She would
+have regarded that as sacrilege. But it was a look, a little trembling
+smile, which betrayed the ingenuous young creature to me. I felt that I
+was in the presence of a nature very fair and exquisitely pure. It was a
+sacred feeling. I almost felt as if I ought not to read the signs in her
+face, because she had no idea that they were there.
+
+"I have such horrible doubts," she said suddenly with suppressed
+bitterness. "I do not belittle my love. I know that I loved him with all
+my heart and soul, and that I gave him more than most women would have
+done, because love means infinitely more to me than it does to them. I
+knew all the time that I loved him more than he loved me, but I did not
+care, for I believed, blind as I was, that we loved each other all we were
+capable of doing, and if I had more love to give it was only because I was
+richer than he, and I meant to make him the greater by my treasure. Now I
+feel that both I and my love have been wasted. Oh, it was a cruel thing,
+Ruth. I feel so poor, so poor."
+
+"Louise, you think, but you do not think rightly. _Are_ you poorer for
+having loved him? What is his unworth compared with your worth? Isn't your
+love sweeter and truer for having grown and expanded? No love was ever
+wasted. It enriches the giver involuntarily. You are a sweeter, better
+woman than before you loved, unless you made the mistake of small natures
+and let it embitter you. You have no right to feel that it has been
+wasted."
+
+"Do you think so?" she said doubtfully. "That is an uplifting thought."
+Then she added in a low voice, "There is one thing more. It is very
+unworthy, I am afraid, but it is a canker that is eating my heart out. And
+that is the mortification of it. Can you picture the thing to yourself?
+Can you form any idea of how I felt? It grows worse the more I think of
+it."
+
+"I know, I know. But, dear child, there is where I am powerless to help
+you. If I were in your place I think I should feel just as you do. It was
+a cruel thing. I wonder that you bore it as well as you did."
+
+"What! Should _you_ feel that way? Then you do not blame me?"
+
+"Why mention blame in connection with yourself? You are singularly free
+from it. But did you ever consider what an honor the love of such a man
+as your husband is? Do you know how he is admired by great men? Do you
+realize how he must love you, and what magnificent faith he must have to
+wish to marry a young girl like you who admits that she does not love him?
+If you never do anything else in this world except to deserve the faith he
+has in you, you will live a worthy life."
+
+We were standing still now, and Louise was looking at her husband at a
+distance with a look in her eyes which was good to see.
+
+"You never can love him as you loved the other one. A first love never
+comes again. Would you want it to? When you love your husband, as he and
+I both know that you will do some time--perhaps not soon, but he is very
+patient--still, I say, when you love him you will love him in a gentler,
+truer way."
+
+"Can you tell me why such a bitter experience should have been sent to me
+so early in life?"
+
+"To save you pain later and to make of you what you were planned to be."
+
+Tears rolled down her cheeks and she bent to kiss me, for the last mail
+had been put aboard and we had only a moment more.
+
+What she whispered in my ear I shall never tell to any one, but it will
+sweeten my whole life.
+
+As we went towards Mr. Whitehouse Louise involuntarily quickened her pace
+a little and held out her hand to him with a smile. It was good to see his
+face change color and to view the quiet delight with which he received
+her.
+
+Then there were good-byes and hurried steps and a great deal of shouting
+and hauling of ropes, and there were waving of hands and a tossing of
+roses from the decks above and a few furtive tears and many heart-aches,
+and then--the great steamer had sailed.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+                IN WHICH I WILLINGLY TURN MY FACE WESTWARD
+
+                "Grow old along with me.
+                 The best is yet to be,
+         The last of life, for which the first was made.
+                 Our times are in His hand
+                 Who saith, 'A whole I planned,
+         Youth shows but half; trust God, see all, nor be afraid.'"
+
+
+The years cannot go on without destroying the old landmarks, and I am so
+old-fashioned that change of any kind saddens me. People move away,
+strangers take their houses, the girls marry, children grow up, and
+everything is so mutable that sometimes my cheerfulness has a haze to it.
+
+I am in a mood of retrospection to-night. I am living over the past and
+knitting up the ravelled ends.
+
+Dear Rachel! I am thankful that she and Percival continue so happy. It is
+wonderful how every one recognizes and speaks of the completeness of
+these two. They do not parade their affection. They seem rather to try to
+hide it even from me, as if it were almost too sacred for even my kindly
+eyes. It is in the atmosphere, and, though they go their separate ways,
+they are more thoroughly together than any other married people I know.
+
+Both Percival and Rachel are becoming very generally recognized now.
+People are discovering how wonderfully clever their work is, and they
+share themselves with the public, although it is a sacrifice every time
+they do so. Rachel's rather turbulent cleverness has softened down. She
+says it is because it is "billowed in another greater and gentler sort."
+She looks at me rather wistfully sometimes. I know what she thinks, but
+she does not bore me with questions. I wonder if she thinks I regret
+anything. Unless I consider that the Percivals have redeemed the record I
+am keeping, there is nothing especially tempting in the marriages I am
+watching. I cannot think that they are any happier than I am.
+
+Sallie Cox seems contented most of the time. She has a magnificent
+establishment, handsomer than all the rest of the girls' put together. Her
+husband "doesn't bother" her, she says, and the Osbornes are very popular.
+
+"I'm glad I'm shallow," she said to me once. "Shallow hearts do not ache
+long. If I had a deep nature I should go mad or turn into a saint. As it
+is, I wear the scars."
+
+Once, when I went with her to Rachel's, she sat and looked around the
+simple, inexpensive house, with the walls all lined with books and no room
+too good to live in every day, and she said,
+
+"This is the prettiest home I ever was in in my life, and there is not a
+lace curtain in the house!"
+
+We laughed--everybody laughs at Sallie--and Rachel said gently,
+
+"We don't need them."
+
+Sallie looked up quickly and took in the full significance of the words,
+as she answered in the same tone,
+
+"No, you do not, but I do." And each woman had told her heart history.
+Now, Rachel must know almost as much about Sallie as I do; but she never
+will know all.
+
+Sallie said she went home and hated every room in her house separately and
+specifically; then she had a good cry over "the perfectness of the
+Percivals," and issued invitations to a masked ball.
+
+"That ball was full of significance, Ruth," she told me afterwards with
+her most whimsically knowing look. "It was bristling with it. But nobody
+thought of it except a certain little goose I know named Sara Cox
+Osborne."
+
+Jack Whitehouse and Pet Winterbotham are married. They had the most
+beautiful wedding I ever saw; but it was like watching the babes in the
+wood, for they are _such_ a young-looking pair.
+
+I understand better now what Pet meant when she talked about Jack's
+appearance so much. I think he expressed to her the idea of perpetual
+youth and eternal spring-time. To me, too, it seems as if he ought always
+to be yachting in blue and white, or lying at full length on the grass at
+some girl's feet. And Pet herself makes an admirable companion-piece.
+When I see her in a misty white ball-dress, with one man bringing her an
+ice and another holding her flowers and a third bearing her filmy wraps, I
+feel that things are quite as they should be. Some people seem to be born
+for fair weather and smooth sailing.
+
+It is too soon to judge them finally. Norris Whitehouse's nephew will
+outgrow the ball-room, and Pet will find in Louise an incentive to grow
+womanly.
+
+The Asburys have built a fine house since Alice's father died, and go
+about a great deal, but seldom together. Asbury lives at the club, and
+Alice has her mother with her. Alice has embraced Theosophy and spells her
+name "Alys." She always is interested in something new and advanced, and
+whenever I meet her I am prepared to go into ecstasies over a plan to save
+men's souls by electricity, or something equally speedy in the moral line.
+She is daft on spiritual rapid transit.
+
+She does these things because she is a disappointed, clever, ambitious
+woman, who would have made a noble character if she had been surrounded
+by right influences.
+
+What would have been the result if Alice had taken as her creed: "The
+situation that has not its duty, its ideals, was never yet occupied by
+man. Yes, here in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual,
+wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal; work it out
+therefrom, and working, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself; thy
+condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of; what
+matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou give
+it be heroic, be poetic? Oh, thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the
+Actual and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and
+create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee,
+'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see"?
+
+Ah, well, she could not. She still is crying to the gods and spelling her
+name "Alys." Her cleverness must have an outlet, and, with worse than no
+husband to lavish it upon, she scatters it to the four winds of heaven
+and gets herself talked about as "queer."
+
+May Brandt has bitten into her apples of Sodom, and the taste of ashes is
+bitter indeed to her. She knows now that Brandt never loved her, and did
+love Alice. I do not know whether she thinks he still cares for Alice or
+not. May never had much beauty to lose, but she looks worn and unhappy,
+and watches Alice with a degree of feeling which would appear vulgar to me
+if I did not know just how miserable she is. She is hopelessly plain now,
+and Alice is still like a tall, stately lily. Brandt devours her with his
+eyes, but Alice makes him keep his distance.
+
+Sallie Cox has been diplomatic and harmless enough to make Alice forgive
+her, and they are quite good friends; but Alice is magnificent in her
+scorn of Brandt's wife, who almost cowers in her presence.
+
+Poor May! I wish I could take that look of suffering from her little
+pinched, three-cornered face for just one hour. But how could I? How could
+anybody who knew all about it?
+
+She does not understand Alice in all her moods and vagaries, and Alice
+does not condescend to explain herself even to her friends. I do not
+believe that Alice and Brandt have ever spoken on the subject which
+occupies three minds whenever they two are thrown together. Yet I imagine
+it would be a relief to May if she were told that. However, she is
+scarcely noble enough to believe it, even if Alice herself should tell
+her. But Alice never will. She never gives it a thought. Brandt, too, has
+honor, though, even if he had not, Alice would have it for him and forbid
+a word.
+
+It is a fortunate thing for some people's chances for a future life that
+there are a reasonable number of consciences distributed through the
+world, although it would be an Old Maid's suggestion that sometimes they
+be allowed to drive instead of being used as a liveried tiger--for
+ornament and always behind. It is a great pity that people who are
+supplied with them--and well-cultivated consciences too--have not the
+courage to live up to them, but allow themselves to be gently and feebly
+miserable all their lives.
+
+Now, Charlie Hardy has periods of being the most miserable man I ever
+knew. His last interview with Louise must have been as serious a thing as
+he ever experienced. He has married Frankie Taliaferro, and she makes the
+sweetest little kitten of a wife you ever saw. In Louise he would have
+been protected by a coat of mail. In Frankie he finds it turned into a
+pale-blue eider-down quilt, which suits his temperament much better.
+
+Louise Whitehouse is coming home soon. Her year abroad has lengthened into
+several years, and they have been the most beautiful of her life, she
+writes. "Living with a song in one's life may be the sweetest while it
+lasts and before one thinks; but to live by a psalm is to find life
+infinitely more beautiful and worthier. I never can be thankful enough
+that my life was taken out of my hands at the time when I clung to it most
+blindly, and ordered anew by One stronger and wiser than I."
+
+Tears come to my eyes whenever I think of this girl. I do not quite know
+why, unless it is that there always is something sad in watching the
+tempering of a bright young enthusiasm, even though it becomes more useful
+than when so sparkling and high-strung.
+
+I have been at great pains to have Charlie Hardy realize how happy Louise
+is, but his conscience still troubles him at times. He says he knows he
+did the right thing for every one concerned, but he dislikes the idea of
+himself in so disagreeable a rôle; and Louise's opinion of him now, after
+the one she did have, is a constant humiliation to him. Women always have
+admired him, and he objects very strongly to any exception to the rule. I
+think he misses the mental ozone which he found in Louise. I often wonder
+if men who have loved superior women and married average ones do not have
+occasional wonderings and yearnings over lost "might have beens."
+
+The Mayos still live in the brown house, which has been enlarged and
+greatly beautified recently. I have an enthusiastic friendship with the
+children, who are growing into slim slips of girls and sturdy, clear-eyed
+boys, and their house is still a home. Frank's admiration for soubrettes
+died a sudden and violent death at the masked notoriety of his initial
+escapade, and for a time he was shocked into better behavior. We hear odd
+rumors floating around, however, of whose truth we never can be sure, but
+which we shake our heads over, after the fashion of those whose confidence
+has been caught napping once. We never knew whether Nellie discovered the
+truth or not. If Frank denied it, it would not affect matters with her if
+the world rang with it. Her idolatry has a certain blind stubbornness in
+it which I should not care to beat against.
+
+Bronson does not stand as straight as he did when I first knew him. Rachel
+says he has "a scholarly stoop." But she knows, and I know, that something
+besides law-books and parchment has taken the elasticity out of his step.
+
+Many years have gone by since I became an Old Maid. I want to call my
+Alter Ego's attention to this fact gently but firmly, because I have an
+idea that she still considers herself "only thirty," and that she thinks
+she has just begun to be an Old Maid. Whereas she is old and so am I. I
+do not mind it at all. Neither does she; it is only that she had not
+realized it. We have so much to think about more important than our stupid
+ages. People have grown used to seeing us about, and we like the same
+things, and keep going at about the same pace and in the same road, and I
+think we have come to be an Institution.
+
+I have no worries which I do not borrow from my married friends. I keep up
+with the fashions; my clothes fit me; my fingers still come to the ends of
+my gloves; I feel no leaning towards all-over cloth shoes; I have not gone
+permanently into bonnets. I have tried to be a pleasant Old Maid, and my
+reward is that my friends make me feel as if they liked to have me about.
+I am not made to feel that I am _passé_. One's clothes and one's feelings
+are all that ever make one _passé_.
+
+Nevertheless, I have turned my face resolutely towards the setting sun. I
+am resting now. I have given up struggling against the inevitable. That is
+a privilege and an attribute of youth. I feel as though I were only
+beginning to live, now that I have passed through the period of turmoil
+and come out from the rapids into gently gliding water. There is so much
+in life which we could not see at the beginning, but which grows with our
+growth and bears us company in the richness of evening-tide. I have
+learned to love my life and to cultivate it. Who knows what is in her life
+until she has tended it and made it know that she expects something from
+it in return for all her aspirations and endeavors? Even my wasted efforts
+are dear to me.
+
+    "'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
+     And ask them what report they bore to Heaven,
+     And how they might have borne more welcome news."
+
+Yet there is a sadness in looking back. I see the many lost opportunities
+lifting to me their wistful faces, and dumbly pleading with me to accept
+them and their promises; yet I carelessly passed them by. I see worse. I
+see the rents in the hedge, where I forced my wilful way into forbidden
+fields, and only regained my path after weary wandering, brier-torn, and
+none the better for my folly. Lost faces come before me which I might have
+gladdened oftener. Voices sound in my ear whose tones I might have made
+happier if I would. Withheld sympathy rises up before me deploring its
+wasted treasure. How can any one be happy in looking back? The only
+pleasure in looking forward is in hope. Yet now both grief and joy are
+tempered with a softness which enfolds my fretted spirit gratefully.
+
+              "Time has laid his hand
+    Upon my heart gently; not smiting it,
+    But as a harper lays his open palm
+    Upon his harp to deaden its vibrations."
+
+And so I am looking forward to-night to an old age more peaceful, less
+turbulent, than my youth has been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life
+holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise
+comprehend. Possibly this is one reason why youth is so anxious to
+concentrate enjoyment. But I am tired of concentration. There is a wear
+and tear about it which precludes the possibility of pleasure. I want to
+take the rest of my life gently, and by redoubled tenderness repay it for
+rude handling in my youth--that youth which lies very far away from me
+to-night and is wrapped in a rainbow mist.
+
+
+                                  THE END
+
+
+
+
+                                LOVE-LETTERS
+                                    OF A
+                               WORLDLY WOMAN.
+
+
+By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD, Author of "Aunt Anne," "Mrs. Keith's Crime," etc.
+16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $1 25.
+
+This volume contains three brilliant love-stories well worth reading....
+The letters are original and audacious, and are full of a certain
+intellectual "abandon" which is sure to charm the cultivated reader....
+We trust that Mrs. W. K. Clifford will give us more fiction in this
+delicately humorous, subtle, and analytic vein.--_Literary World_, Boston.
+
+Mrs. Clifford's literary style is excellent, and the love-letters always
+have their special interest.--_N.Y. Times._
+
+There is abundant cleverness in it. The situations are presented with
+skill and force, and the letters are written with great dramatic propriety
+and much humor.--_St. James's Gazette_, London.
+
+In short analytical stories of this kind Mrs. Clifford has come to take a
+unique position in England. In the delicate, ingenious, forcible use of
+language, to express the results of an unusual range of observation, she
+stands to our literature as De Maupassant and Bourget stand to the
+literature of France.--_Black and White_, London.
+
+The study of character is so acute, the analysis of motives and conduct so
+skilful, and, withal, the wit and satire so keen, that the reader does not
+tire.--_Christian Intelligencer_, N.Y.
+
+                           *       *       *
+
+_Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York._
+
+_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the
+United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+
+
+                             UNHAPPY LOVES
+                                  OF
+                             MEN OF GENIUS.
+
+
+By THOMAS HITCHCOCK. With Twelve Portraits.
+16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
+
+A fascinating book. So taking are its rapidly interchanging lights and
+shadows that one reads it from beginning to end without any thought of
+possible intrusion.--_Observer_, N.Y.
+
+The simple and perspicuous style in which Mr. Hitchcock tells these
+stories of unhappy loves is not less admirable than the learning and the
+extensive reading and investigation which have enabled him to gather the
+facts presented in a manner so engaging. His volume is an important
+contribution to literature, and it is of universal interest.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+The stories are concisely and sympathetically told, and the book presents
+in small compass what, in lieu of it, must be sought through many
+volumes.--_Dial_, Chicago.
+
+A very interesting little book.... The studies are carefully and aptly
+made, and add something to one's sense of personal acquaintanceship with
+those men and women who were before not strangers.--_Evangelist_, N.Y.
+
+                           *       *       *
+
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Love Affairs of an Old Maid, by Lilian Bell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Love Affairs of an Old Maid
+
+Author: Lilian Bell
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #22047]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID ***
+
+
+
+
+<b>Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Anne Storer, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+</b>
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="center">Transcriber&#8217;s Note: <br />
+The original text noted chapters as 1, 2, 3 etc. in the TOC, <br />
+and I, II, III etc. in chapter headers. These have been retained.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 464px;">
+<img src="images/imgcover.jpg" width="464" height="600" alt="Cover" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>THE</h2>
+
+<h1>LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID</h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>BY</strong></p>
+
+<h2>LILIAN BELL</h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;<em>Some ships reach happy ports that are not steered</em>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85px;">
+<img src="images/001.png" width="85" height="100" alt="Logo" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>NEW YORK<br />
+HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS</strong></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1893, by <span class="smcap">Harper &amp; Brothers</span>.<br />
+<em>All rights reserved.</em></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>DEDICATION</h2>
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">
+This book is dedicated very fondly to my beloved family, who, in their
+anxiety to render me material assistance, have offered me such diverse
+opinions as to its merit that their criticisms radiate from me in as many
+directions as there are spokes to a wheel.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">
+This leaves the distraught hub with no opinion of its own, and with
+flaring, ragged edges.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">
+Nevertheless, thus must it appear before the public, whose opinion will be
+the tire which shall enable my wheel to revolve. If it be favorable, one
+may look for smooth riding; if unfavorable, one must expect jolts.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is a pity that there is no prettier term to bestow upon a girl bachelor
+of any age than Old Maid. &ldquo;Spinster&rdquo; is equally uncomfortable, suggesting,
+as it does, corkscrew curls and immoderate attenuation of frame; while
+&ldquo;maiden lady,&rdquo; which the ultra-punctilious substitute, is entirely too
+mincing for sensible, whole-souled people to countenance.</p>
+
+<p>I dare say that more women would have the courage to remain unmarried were
+there so euphonious a title awaiting them as that of &ldquo;bachelor,&rdquo; which,
+when shorn of its accompanying adjective &ldquo;old,&rdquo; simply means unmarried.</p>
+
+<p>The word &ldquo;bachelor,&rdquo; too, has somewhat of a jaunty sound, implying to the
+sensitive ear that its owner could have been married&mdash;oh, several times
+over&mdash;if he had wished. But both &ldquo;spinster&rdquo; and &ldquo;old maid&rdquo; have narrow,
+restricted attributes, which, to say the least, imply doubt as to past
+opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>Names are covertly responsible for many overt acts. Carlyle, when he said,
+&ldquo;The name is the earliest garment you wrap around the earth-visiting me.
+Names? Not only all common speech, but Science, Poetry itself, if thou
+consider it, is no other than a right naming,&rdquo; sounded a wonderful note in
+Moral Philosophy, which rings false many a time in real life, when to ring
+true would change the whole face of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I boldly affirm, that were there a proper sounding title to cover the
+class of unmarried women, many a marriage which now takes place, with
+either moderate success or distinct failure, would remain in pleasing
+embryo.</p>
+
+<p>Of the three evils among names for my book, therefore, I leave you to
+determine whether I have chosen the greatest or least. The writing of it
+came about in this way.</p>
+
+<p>In a conversation concerning modern marriage, the unwisdom people display
+in choice, and the complicated affair it has come to be from a pastoral
+beginning, I said lightly, &ldquo;I shall write a book upon this subject some
+fine day, and I shall call it &lsquo;The Love Affairs of an Old Maid,&rsquo; because
+popular prejudice decrees that the love affairs of an old maid necessarily
+are those of other people.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the name suggested in broad jest taken form in my mind than
+straightway every thought I possessed crystallized around it, and I found
+myself impelled by a malevolent Fate to begin it.</p>
+
+<p>It became a fixed intention on a Sunday morning in church during a most
+excellent sermon, the text and substance of which I have forgotten.
+Doubtless more of real worth and benefit to mankind was pent up in that
+sermon than four books of my own writing could accomplish. But, with the
+delightful candor of John Kendrick Bangs, I explain my lapse of memory
+thus&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;I dote on Milton and on Robert Burns;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I love old Marryat&mdash;his tales of pelf;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">I live on Byron; but my heart most yearns<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Towards those sweet things that I&#8217;ve penned myself.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So the book has been written. The existence of the Old Maid often has been
+a precarious one; she has been surrounded by danger, once narrowly
+escaping cremation. But my humanity towards dumb brutes saved her. I might
+have sacrificed a woman, but I could not kill a cat. So she lives,
+unconsciously owing her life to her cat.</p>
+
+<p>Thus she comes to you, bearing her friends in her heart. I should scarcely
+dare ask you to welcome her, did I not suspect that her friends are yours.
+You have your Flossy and your Charlie Hardy without doubt. Pray Heaven you
+have a Rachel to outweigh them.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 3em;"><span class="smcap">Chicago</span>, <em>March</em>, 1893.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="14" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='right'><span class="smcap">chapter</span></td><td align='left'></td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#I">1.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">I Introduce Me to Myself</span></td><td align='right'>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#II">2.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">I Come into My Kingdom</span></td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#III">3.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Matrimony in Harness</span></td><td align='right'>18</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#IV">4.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Women as Lovers</span></td><td align='right'>30</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#V">5.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Heart of a Coquette</span></td><td align='right'>51</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#VI">6.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Lonely Childhood of a Clever Child</span></td><td align='right'>65</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#VII">7.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Study in Human Geese</span></td><td align='right'>78</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#VIII">8.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Game of Hearts</span></td><td align='right'>91</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#IX">9.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Madonna of the Quiet Mind</span></td><td align='right'>120</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#X">10.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pathos of Faith</span></td><td align='right'>137</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#XI">11.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Hazard of a Human Die</span></td><td align='right'>156</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#XII">12.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In Which I Willingly Turn My Face Westward</span></td><td align='right'>174</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 1]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1><a name="I" id="I"></a>THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF ON OLD MAID</h1>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+<h2>I</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF</strong></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;There is a luxury in self-dispraise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">And inward self-disparagement affords<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">To meditative spleen a grateful feast.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. What a trying thing to have to say even
+to one&#8217;s self, and how vexed I should be if anybody else said it to me!
+Nevertheless, it is a comfort to be brutally honest once in a while to
+myself. I do not dare, I do not care, to be so to everybody. But with my
+own self, I can feel that it is strictly a family affair. If I hurt my
+feelings, I can grieve over it until I apologize. If I flatter myself, I
+am only doing what every other woman in the world is doing in her
+inner<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 2]</span>most consciousness, and flattery as honest as flattery from one&#8217;s
+own self naturally would be could not fail to please me. Besides, it would
+have the unique value of being believed by both sides&mdash;a situation in the
+flattery line which I fancy has no rival.</p>
+
+<p>It is well to become acquainted with one&#8217;s self at all hazards, and as I
+am going to be my own partner in the rubber of life, I can do nothing
+better than to study my own hand. So, to harrow up my feelings as only I
+dare to do, I write down that it is really true of me that I passed the
+first corner five years ago, and to-morrow I shall be 30.</p>
+
+<p>What a disagreeable figure a 3 is; I never noticed it before. It looks so
+self-satisfied. And as to that fat, hollow 0 which follows it&mdash;I always
+did detest round numbers.</p>
+
+<p>30; there it goes again. I must accustom myself to it privately, so I
+write it down once more, and it laughs in my face and mocks me. Then I
+laugh back at it and say aloud that it is true, and for the time being I
+have cowed it and become its<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 3]</span> master. What boots it if the laughter is a
+trifle hollow? There is no harm in deceiving two miserable little figures.</p>
+
+<p>Let me revel in my youth while I may. To-night I am a gay young thing of
+twenty-nine. To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. I have very little time
+left in which to make myself ridiculous and have it excused on account of
+my youth. But somehow I do not feel very gay. I have a curious feeling
+about my heart, as if I were at a burial&mdash;one where I was burying
+something that I had always loved very dearly, but secretly, and which
+would always be a sweet and tender memory with me. I feel nervous, too,
+quite as if I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I remember that
+Alice Asbury said she was hysterical just before she was married. I wonder
+if a woman&#8217;s feelings on the eve of being an Old Maid are unlike those of
+one about to become a bride.</p>
+
+<p>My cat sits eying me with sleepy approval. I always liked cats. And tea.
+Why have I never thought of it before? It is not my fault that I am an Old
+Maid. I was cut out for one. All my tendencies point that<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 4]</span> way. Please
+don&#8217;t blame me, good people. Come here, Tabby. You and Missis will grow
+old together.</p>
+
+<p>After all, it is a sad thing when one realizes for the first time that
+one&#8217;s youth is slipping away. But why? Why do women of great intelligence,
+of intellect even, blush with pleasure at the implication of youth?</p>
+
+<p>There are fashions in thought as well as in dress, and the best of us
+follow both, as sheep follow their leader. We will sometimes follow our
+neighbor&#8217;s line of insular prejudice, when worlds could not bribe us to
+copy her grammar or her gowns. Dull people admire youth. They excuse its
+follies; they adore its prettiness. That it is only a period of education,
+and that real life begins with maturity, does not enter into their minds.
+The odor of bread and butter does not nauseate them. Dull people, I
+say&mdash;and God pity us, most of us are dull&mdash;admire youth. Men love it.
+Therefore we all want to be young. We strive to be young, nay, we <em>will</em>
+be young.</p>
+
+<p>I am no better than my neighbors. I, too, am young when I am with people.
+But<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 5]</span> there are times when I am alone when the strain of being young
+relaxes, and I luxuriate in being old, old, old, when I cease being
+contemporary, and look back fondly to the time when the world and I were
+in embryo.</p>
+
+<p>And yet I wonder if extreme age is as repulsive to everybody as it is to
+me. Forty seems a long way off. I fancy people at forty become very
+uninteresting to the oncoming generation. Fifty is grandmotherly and
+suitable for little else. Sixty, seventy, and beyond seem to me one
+horrible jumble of wrinkles and wheezes and false beauty and general
+unpleasantness. Oh, I hope, if I should live to be over fifty, that I may
+be a pleasant old person. I hope my teeth will fit me, and the parting to
+my wave be always in the middle. I hope my fingers will always come fully
+to the ends of my gloves, and that I never shall wear my spectacles on top
+of my head. But I hope more than all that it isn&#8217;t wicked to wish to die
+before I come to these things.</p>
+
+<p>Before I entirely lose my youth&mdash;in other words, before I become an Old
+Maid, let me see what I must give up. Lovers, of<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 6]</span> course. That goes
+without saying. And if I give them up, it will not do to have their
+photographs standing around. They must be&mdash;oh! and their letters&mdash;must
+they too be destroyed? Dear me, no! I&#8217;ll just fold them all together and
+lay them away, like a wedding-dress which never has been worn. And I&#8217;ll
+put girls&#8217; pictures or missionaries&#8217; or martyrs&#8217; into the empty frames.
+Martyrs&#8217; would be most appropriate.</p>
+
+<p>Now for a box to put them in. A pretty box, so that one who runs may read?
+Not so, you sentimental Elderly Person. Take this tin box with a lock on
+it. There you are, done up in a japanned box and padlocked. I would say
+that it looks like a little coffin if I wasn&#8217;t afraid of what my Alter Ego
+would say. She seems cross to-night. I wonder what is the matter with her.
+She must be getting old. I should like to hang the key around my neck on a
+blue ribbon, but I am afraid. &ldquo;What if you should be run over and killed,&rdquo;
+she says, &ldquo;or should faint away in church? Remember that you are an Old
+Maid.&rdquo; How <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 7]</span>disagreeable old maids can be! And I&#8217;ve got to live with this
+one always. I&#8217;ll put the key in my purse. Nice, sensible, prosaic place, a
+purse.</p>
+
+<p>How late it grows! I have only a little time left. I believe that clock is
+fast. Dear, dear! Do I want to just sit still and watch myself turn? I
+meant to have old age overtake me in my sleep. I think I&#8217;ll stop that
+clock and let my youth fade from me unawares.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 8]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>I COME INTO MY KINGDOM</strong></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&ldquo;There is no compensation for the woman who feels that the chief
+relation of her life has been no more than a mistake. She has lost
+her crown. The deepest secret of human blessedness has half
+whispered itself to her and then forever passed her by.&rdquo;</p></div>
+
+
+<p>I have become an Old Maid, and really it is a relief. I feel as if I had
+left myself behind me, and that now I have a right to the interests of
+other people when they are freely offered. My friends always have confided
+in me. I suppose it is because I am receptive. Men tell me their old love
+affairs. Girls tell me the whole story of their engagements&mdash;how they came
+to take this man, and why they did not take that one. And even the most
+ordinary are vitally interesting. Before I know it, I am rent with the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 9]</span>
+same despair which agitates the lover confiding in me; or I am wreathed in
+the smiles of the engaged girl who is getting her absorbing secret
+comfortably off her mind. It seems to comfort them to air their emotion,
+and sometimes I am convinced that they leave the most of it with me.</p>
+
+<p>Now I can feel at liberty to enjoy and sympathize as I will. Well, the
+love affairs of other people are the rightful inheritance of old maids. In
+sharing them I am only coming into my kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Asbury has made shipwreck of hers. The girl is actively miserable
+and her husband is indifferently uncomfortable, which is the habit this
+married couple have of experiencing the same emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Alice is a mass of contradictions to those who do not understand her&mdash;now
+in the clouds, now in the depths. Bad weather depresses her; so does a sad
+story, the death of a kitten, solemn music. She is correspondingly
+volatile in the opposite direction and often laughs at real calamities
+with wonderful courage. She has a fund of romance in her nature which has
+led her to<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 10]</span> the pass she now is in. She is clever, too, at introspection
+and analysis&mdash;of herself chiefly. She studies her own sensations and
+dissects her moods. Her selfishness is of the peculiar sort which should
+have kept her from marrying until she found the hundredth man who could
+appreciate her genius and bend it into nobler channels. Unfortunately she
+married one of the ninety-nine. She is not, perhaps, more selfish than
+many another woman, but her selfishness is different. She is mentally
+cross-eyed from turning her eyes inward so constantly.</p>
+
+<p>She became engaged to Brandt&mdash;a man in every way worthy of her&mdash;and they
+loved each other devotedly. Then during a quarrel she broke the
+engagement, and he, being piqued by her withdrawal, immediately married
+May Lawrence, who had been patiently in love with him for five years, and
+who was only waiting for some such turn as this to deliver him into her
+hands. A poetic justice visits him with misery, for he still cares for
+Alice. May, however, is not conscious of this fact as yet.</p>
+
+<p>Alice, being doubly stung by his defection,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 11]</span> was just in the mood to do
+something desperate, when she began to see a great deal of Asbury, fresh
+from being jilted by Sallie Cox. Asbury was moody, and confided in Alice.
+Alice was foolish, and confided in him. They both decided that their
+hearts were ashes, love burned out, and life a howling wilderness, and
+then proceeded to exchange these empty hearts of theirs, and to go through
+the howling wilderness together.</p>
+
+<p>Alice came to tell me about it. They had no love to give each other, she
+said sadly, but they were going to be married. I would have laughed at her
+if she had not been so tragic. But there is something about Alice, in
+spite of her romantic folly, (which she has adapted from the French to
+suit her American needs,) which forbids ridicule. Nevertheless I felt,
+with one of those sudden flashes of intuition, that this choice of hers
+was a hideous mistake. The situation repelled me. But the very strangeness
+of it seemed to attract the morbid Alice. And it was this one curious
+strain of unexplained foolishness marring her otherwise strong and in many
+ways beautiful character which<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 12]</span> prevented my loving her completely and
+safely. Nevertheless, I cared for her enough to enter my feeble and futile
+protest; but it was waved aside with the superb effrontery of a woman who
+feels that she controls the situation with her head, and whose heart is
+not at liberty to make uncomfortable complications. I would rather argue
+with a woman who is desperately in love, to prevent her marrying the man
+of her choice, than to try to dissuade a woman from marrying a man she has
+set her head upon. You feel sympathy with the former, and you have human
+nature and the whole glorious love-making Past at your back, to give you
+confidence and eloquence. But with the latter you are cowed and beaten
+beforehand, and tongue-tied during the contest.</p>
+
+<p>So she became Alice Asbury, and these two blighted beings took a flat.
+Before they had been at home from their honeymoon a week she came down to
+see me, and told me that she hated Asbury.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine a bride whose bouquet, only a month before, you had held at the
+altar, and heard her promise to love, honor, and obey<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 13]</span> a man until death
+did them part, coming to you with a confession like that. Still, if but
+one half she tells me of him is true, I do not wonder that she hates him.</p>
+
+<p>With her revolutionary, anarchistic completeness, she has renounced the
+idea of compromise or adaptability as finally as if she had seen and
+passed the end of the world. There is no more pliability in her with
+regard to Asbury than there is in a steel rod. How different she used to
+be with Brandt! How she consulted his wishes and accommodated herself to
+him!</p>
+
+<p>When a woman born to be ruled by love only passes by her master spirit,
+she becomes an anomaly in woman&mdash;she makes complications over which the
+psychologist wastes midnight oil, and if he never discovers the solution,
+it is because of its very simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>All the sweetness seems to have left Alice&#8217;s nature. She keeps somebody
+with her every moment. That one guest chamber in her flat has been
+occupied by all the girls that she can persuade to visit her. Asbury
+dislikes company, but she says she<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 14]</span> does not care. She cannot keep
+visitors long, because as soon as they discover that they are unwelcome to
+Asbury, naturally they go home.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, Asbury does not care for Sallie Cox any more. When his vanity
+was wounded, his love died instantly. I think he is more in love with
+himself than he ever was with any woman. There are men, you know, whose
+one grand passion in life is for themselves. But Alice knows that Brandt
+still cares for her, and she feeds her romantic fancy on this fact, and
+has her introspective miseries to her heart&#8217;s content. She is far too
+cool-headed a woman to do anything rash. Sometimes I think her morbid
+nature obtains more real satisfaction out of her joyless situation than
+positive happiness would compensate her for. She appears to take a certain
+negative pleasure in it. Their marriage is the product of a false
+civilization, and I pity them&mdash;at a distance&mdash;from the bottom of my heart.
+I am sorry for Brandt, too, for he honestly loved Alice and might have
+proved the hundredth man&mdash;who knows?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 15]</span>I do not quite know whether to be sorry for May Brandt or not, for she
+made complications and made them purposely. She made them so promptly,
+too, that she precluded the possibility of a reconciliation between Alice
+and Brandt. If Brandt had remained single, I doubt whether Alice would
+have had the courage to form an engagement with any other man. She loved
+him too truly to take the first step towards an eternal separation. Women
+seldom dare make that first move, except as a decoy. They are naturally
+superstitious, and even when curiously free from this trait in everything
+else, they cling to a little in love, and dare not tempt Fate too
+insolently.</p>
+
+<p>A woman who has quarrelled with her lover, in her secret heart expects him
+back daily and hourly, no matter what the cause of the estrangement, until
+he becomes involved with another woman. Then she lays all the blame of his
+defection at the door of the alien, where, in the opinion of an Old Maid,
+it generally belongs.</p>
+
+<p>If other women would let men alone, constancy would be less of a hollow
+mockery.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 16]</span> (Query, but is it constancy where there is no temptation to be
+fickle?) Nevertheless, let &ldquo;another woman&rdquo; sympathize with an estranged
+lover, and place a little delicate blame upon his sweetheart and flatter
+him a great deal, and <em>presto!</em> you have one of those criss-cross
+engagements which turns life to a dull gray for the aching heart which is
+left out.</p>
+
+<p>If, too, when this honestly loving woman appears to take the first step,
+her actions and mental processes could be analyzed and timed, it
+frequently would prove that, with her quicker calculations, she foresaw
+the fatal effect of the &ldquo;other-woman&rdquo; element, and, desirous of protecting
+her vanity, reached blindly out to the nearest man at her command, and
+married him with magnificent effrontery, just to circumvent humiliation
+and to take a little wind out of the other woman&#8217;s sails. But could you
+make her lover believe that? Never.</p>
+
+<p>And so May Lawrence played the &ldquo;other woman&rdquo; in the Asbury tragedy. I
+wonder if she is satisfied with her r&ocirc;le. A girl who wilfully catches a
+man&#8217;s heart on the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 17]</span>rebound, does the thing which involves more risk than
+anything else malevolent fate could devise.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, I think I am sorry for her, for she has apples of Sodom in
+her hand, although as yet to her delighted gaze they appear the fairest of
+summer fruit.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 18]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>MATRIMONY IN HARNESS</strong></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">&ldquo;What eagles are we still<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In matters that belong to other men;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What beetles in our own!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The more I know of horses, the more natural I think men and women are in
+the unequalness of their marriages. I never yet saw a pair of horses so
+well matched that they pulled evenly all the time. The more skilful the
+driver, the less he lets the discrepancy become apparent. Going up hill,
+one horse generally does the greater share of work. If they pull equally
+up hill, sometimes they see-saw and pull in jerks on a level road. And I
+never saw a marriage in which both persons pulled evenly all the time, and
+the worst of it is, I suppose this unevenness is only what is always
+expected.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 19]</span>Having no marriage of my own to worry over, it is gratuitous when I worry
+over other people&#8217;s. Old maids, you know, like to air their views on
+matrimony and bringing up children. Their theories on these subjects have
+this advantage&mdash;that they always hold good because they never are tried.</p>
+
+<p>There never was such an unequal yoking together as the Herricks&#8217;. Nobody
+has told me. This is one of the affairs which has not been confided to me.
+Only, I knew them both so well before they were married. I knew Bronson
+Herrick best, however, because I never used to see any more of Flossy than
+was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, I never liked her name. I have an idea that names show
+character. Could anybody under heaven be noble with such a name as Flossy?
+I believe names handicap people. I believe children are sometimes tortured
+by hideous and unmeaning names. But give them strong, ugly names in
+preference to Ina and Bessie and Flossy and such pretty-pretty names, with
+no meaning and no character to them. Take<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 20]</span> my own name, Ruth. If I wanted
+to be noble or heroic I could be; my name would not be an anomalous
+nightmare to attract attention to the incongruity. We cannot be too
+thankful to our mothers who named us Mary and Dorothy and Constance. What
+an inspiration to be &ldquo;faithful over a few things&rdquo; such a name as Constance
+must be!</p>
+
+<p>But Flossy&#8217;s mother named her&mdash;not Florence, but Flossy. I suppose she was
+one of those fluffy, curly, silky babies. She grew to be that kind of a
+girl&mdash;a Flossy girl. It speaks for itself. I suppose with that name she
+never had any incentive to outgrow her nature.</p>
+
+<p>It came out on her wedding cards:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;Mr. and Mrs. <span class="smcap">Charles Fay Carleton</span><br />
+request you to be present at the<br />
+marriage of their daughter<br />
+<span class="smcap">Flossy</span><br />
+to<br />
+Mr. <span class="smcap">Bronson Sturgis Herrick</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The contrast between the two names, hers so nonsensical and his so
+dignified and strong, was no greater than that <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 21]</span>between the two people. In
+truth, their names were symbolic of their natures. It looked really
+pitiful to me.</p>
+
+<p>I wondered if anybody besides Rachel English and me looked into their
+future with apprehension. Our misgivings, I must admit, were all for
+Bronson.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, well-a-day! It is so easy to feel sympathy for a man you admire,
+especially if he is strong and loyal, and does not ask or desire it of
+you.</p>
+
+<p>Flossy was one of those cuddling girls. She appealed to you with her eyes,
+and you found yourself petting her and sympathizing with her, when, if you
+stopped to think, you would see that she had more of everything than you
+had. She possessed a rich father, a beautiful house, and perfect health.
+Nevertheless, you found yourself asking after &ldquo;poor Flossy,&rdquo; and your
+voice commiserated her if your words did not. She invariably had some
+trifling ill to tell you of. She had hurt her arm, or scratched her hand,
+or the snow made her eyes ache, or she was tired. She never seemed at
+liberty to enjoy herself, although she went everywhere, and<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 22]</span> seemed to do
+so successfully in spite of her imaginary ills, if you let her enjoy
+herself by telling you of them.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody helped Flossy to live. Everybody protected and looked after her.
+There was some one on his knees continually, removing invisible brambles
+from her rose-leaf path. She didn&#8217;t know how to do anything for herself.
+She never buttoned her own boots. When her maid was not with her, other
+people put her jacket on for her, and carried her umbrella and buttoned
+her gloves. Men always buttoned her gloves, and her gloves always had more
+buttons, and more unruly buttons, than any other gloves I ever saw. But
+then I am elderly.</p>
+
+<p>I never knew Flossy to do anything for anybody. She never gave things
+away, but on Christmas and her birthdays she received remembrances from
+everybody. I used to make her presents without knowing why or even
+thinking of it. Flossy&#8217;s name was on all the Christmas lists, and she used
+to shed tears over the kindness of her friends, and write the prettiest
+notes to them, so plaintive and self-deprecatory.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 23]</span> Then they took her to
+drive, or did something more for her. Flossy read poetry and cried over
+it. She wrote poetry too, and other people cried over that.</p>
+
+<p>When Bronson Herrick told me he was going to marry her, I wanted to say,
+&ldquo;No, you are not.&rdquo; But I didn&#8217;t. I did not even seem to be surprised, for
+he is so proud he would have resented any surprise on my part. He told me
+about it of course, knowing that I could not fail to be pleased. (His
+photograph is in that japanned box of mine. This smile on my face, Tabby,
+is rather sardonic. Why is it that men expect an old sweetheart to take an
+active interest in their bride-elect, and are so deadly sure that they
+will like each other?)</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She is the most sympathetic little thing,&rdquo; he said enthusiastically. &ldquo;She
+reminds me of you in so many ways. You are very much alike.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, thank you, Bronson Sturgis Herrick! I assure you I would cheerfully
+drown myself if I thought you were right about that,&rdquo; I exclaimed
+mentally.</p>
+
+<p>He repeated over and over that she was<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 24]</span> &ldquo;so sympathetic.&rdquo; He meant, of
+course, that she had wept over him. Flossy&#8217;s tears flow like rain if you
+crook your finger at her, and tears wring the heart of a man like Bronson.
+To think he was going to marry her! I just looked at him, I remember, as
+he stood so straight and tall before me, and said to myself, &ldquo;Well, you
+dear, honest, loyal, clever man! You are just the kind of a man that women
+fool most unmercifully. But it&#8217;s nature, and you can&#8217;t help it. Go and
+marry this Flossy girl, and commit mental suicide if you must.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sympathetic!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So he married her five years ago, and became her man-servant.</p>
+
+<p>When they had been married about a year, people said that Bronson was
+working himself to death. I, being an Old Maid, and liking to meddle with
+other people&#8217;s business, told him that I thought he ought to take a
+vacation. He said he couldn&#8217;t afford it. I was honestly surprised at that,
+because, while he was not rich, he was extremely well-to-do, with a
+rapidly increasing law practice. And then Flossy&#8217;s father had<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 25]</span> been very
+generous when she married him. He was considerate enough to reply to my
+look.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know I married a rich girl. Flossy&#8217;s money is her own. She has saved
+it&mdash;I wished her to save it, I <em>wished</em> it&mdash;and I am doing my level best
+to support her as nearly as possible in the way in which she has been
+accustomed to live. She ought to have an easier time, poor child.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So he did not take a vacation, and the summer was very hot, and when
+Flossy came home from Rye she found him wretchedly ill, and discovered
+that he had had a trained nurse for two weeks before he let her know
+anything about it. Then people pitied Flossy for having her summer
+interrupted, and Flossy felt that it was a shame; but she very willingly
+sat and fanned Bronson for as much as an hour every day and answered
+questions languidly and was pale, and people sent her flowers and were
+extremely sorry for her.</p>
+
+<p>When Bronson became well enough to go away, as his doctors ordered, for a
+complete rest, Rachel English happened to go on the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 26]</span> same train with them,
+and the next day I received a letter, or rather an envelope, from her,
+with this single sentence enclosed: &ldquo;And if she didn&#8217;t make him hold her
+in his arms in broad daylight every step of the way, because the train
+jarred her back!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>(Tabby, there is no use in talking. I must stop and pull your ears. Come
+here and let Missis be really rough with you for a minute.)</p>
+
+<p>There are some women who prefer a valet to a husband; who think that the
+more menial are his services in public, the more apparent is his devotion.
+It is a Roman-chariot-wheel idea, which degrades both the man and the
+woman in the eyes of the spectators. I wrote to Rachel, and said in the
+letter, &ldquo;One horse in the span always does most of the pulling, you know,
+especially uphill.&rdquo; And Rachel wrote back, &ldquo;Wouldn&#8217;t I just like to drive
+this pair, though!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Bronson had his ideals before he was married, as most men have, concerning
+the kind of a home he hoped for. He always said that it was not so much
+what your home was, as how it was. He believed that a<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 27]</span> home consisted more
+in the feelings and aims of its inmates than in rugs and jardini&egrave;res. He
+said to me once, &ldquo;The oneness of two people could make a home in Sahara.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was ambitious, too, feeling within himself that power which makes
+orators and statesmen, but needing the approval and encouragement of some
+one who also realized his capabilities, to enable him to do his best. He
+himself was the one who was sympathetic, if he had only known it. His
+nature responded with the utmost readiness to whatever appealed to him
+from the side of right or justice.</p>
+
+<p>He had noble hopes in many directions, hopes which inspired me to believe
+in his truth and goodness, aside from his capabilities for achieving
+greatness. His eagle sight, which read through other men&#8217;s shams and
+pretences; his moral sense, which bade him shun even the appearance of
+evil, not only permitted, but urged him, seemingly, into this marriage
+with Flossy, by which he effectually cut himself off from his dearest
+aspirations. One by one I have seen him relinquish them, holding to them
+lovingly to the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 28]</span> last. The hours at home, which he intended to give to
+study and research, have been sacrificed to the petting and nursing of a
+perfectly well woman, who demanded it of him. His home life, where he had
+dreamed of a congenial atmosphere, where the centripetal force should be
+the love of wife and children, merged into frequent journeys for
+Flossy&mdash;who would have been happy if she never had been obliged to stay in
+one place over a week&mdash;and a shifting of their one child Rachel into the
+care of nurses, because Flossy fretted at the care of her and demanded all
+of Bronson&#8217;s time for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was Bronson&#8217;s life being twisted and bent from its natural course.
+Was it a weakness in him? To be sure he might have shown his strength by
+breaking loose from family ties, and, hardening his heart to his wife&#8217;s
+plaints, have carried out his ambitions with some degree of success. He
+did attempt this, nor did he fail in his career. He was called a fairly
+successful man. I dare say the majority of people never knew that he was
+created for grander things. But something was sapping his energy at the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 29]</span>
+fountain-head. Was he realizing that he had helped to shatter his ideals
+with his own hand?</p>
+
+<p>I never am so well satisfied with my lot of single-blessedness as when I
+contemplate the sort of wife Flossy makes. That may sound arrogant, but
+this is a secret session of human nature, when arrogance and all
+native-born sins are permissible.</p>
+
+<p>Flossy is perfectly unconscious of the spectacle she presents to the
+world. Ah, me! I know it is said, &ldquo;Judge not, that ye be not judged.&rdquo; I
+might have made him just such a wife, I suppose. O heavens! no, I
+shouldn&#8217;t. Tabby, that is making humility go a little too far.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 30]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>WOMEN AS LOVERS</strong></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In every clime and country<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There lives a Man of Pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">Whose nerves, like chords of lightning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Bring fire into his brain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">To him a whisper is a wound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A look or sneer, a blow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">More pangs he feels in years or months<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than dunce-throng&#8217;d ages know.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>I have had such a curious experience. I have been confided in, twice in
+one day. Two more bits out of other lives have been given to me, and it is
+astonishing to see how well they piece into mine.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, Rachel English came in early. There is something
+particularly auspicious about Rachel. She fits me like a glove. She never
+jars nor grates. When she is here, I am comfortable; when she is gone, I
+miss something. If I see a fine painting, or hear magnificent music, I
+think<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 31]</span> of Rachel before any other thought comes into my mind. One
+involuntarily associates her with anything wonderfully fine in art or
+literature, with the perfect assurance that she will be sympathetic and
+appreciative. She understands the deep, inarticulate emotions in the
+kindred way you have a right to expect of your lover, and which you are
+oftenest disappointed in, if you do expect it of him. If I were a man, I
+should be in love with Rachel.</p>
+
+<p>Her sensitiveness through every available channel makes her of no use to
+general society. Blundering people tread on her; malicious ones tear her
+to pieces. Rachel ought to be caged, and only approached by clever people
+who have brains enough to appreciate her. I should like to be her keeper.
+But her organization is too closely allied to that of genius to be happy,
+unless with certain environments which it is too good to believe will ever
+surround her. She is so clever that she is perfectly helpless. If you knew
+her, this would not be a paradox. Possibly it isn&#8217;t anyway.</p>
+
+<p>I do not say that Rachel is perfect. She<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 32]</span> would be desperately
+uncomfortable as a friend if she were. Her failings are those belonging to
+a frank, impulsive, generous nature, which I myself find it easy to
+forgive. Her gravest fault is a witty tongue. That which many people would
+give years of their lives to possess is what she has shed the most tears
+over and which she most liberally detests in herself. She calls it her
+private demon, and says she knows that one of the devils, in the woman who
+was possessed of seven, was the devil of wit.</p>
+
+<p>Wit is a weapon of defence, and was no more intended to be an attribute of
+woman than is a knowledge of fire-arms or a fondness for mice. A witty
+woman is an anomaly, fit only for literary circles and to be admired at a
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>It is of no use to advise Rachel to curb her tongue. So tender-hearted
+that the sight of an animal in pain makes her faint; so humble-minded that
+she cannot bear to receive an apology, but, no matter what has been the
+offence, cuts it off short and hastens to accept it before it is uttered,
+with the generous assurance that she, too, has been<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 33]</span> to blame; yet she
+wounds cruelly, but unconsciously, with her tongue, which cleaves like a
+knife, and holds up your dearest, most private foibles on stilettos of wit
+for the public to mock at. Not that she is personal in her allusions, but
+her thorough knowledge of the philosophy of human nature and the deep,
+secret springs of human action lead her to witty, satirical
+generalizations, which are so painfully true that each one of her hearers
+goes home hugging a personal affront, while poor Rachel never dreams of
+lacerated feelings until she meets averted faces or hears a whisper of her
+heinous sin. This grieves her wofully, but leaves her with no mode of
+redress, for who dare offer balm to wounded vanity? I believe her when she
+says she &ldquo;never wilfully planted a thorn in any human breast.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She scarcely had entered before I saw that she had something on her mind.
+And it was not long before she began to confide, but in an impersonal way.</p>
+
+<p>There is something which makes you hold your breath before you enter the
+inner nature of some one who has extraordinary<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 34]</span> depth. You feel as if you
+were going to find something different and interesting, and possibly
+difficult or explosive. It is dark, too, yet you feel impelled to enter.
+It is like going into a cave.</p>
+
+<p>Most people are afraid of Rachel. Sometimes I am. But it is the alluring,
+hysterical fear which makes a child say, &ldquo;Scare me again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Imagine such a girl in love. Rachel is in love. She would not say with
+whom&mdash;naturally. At least, naturally for Rachel. I felt rather helpless,
+but as I knew that all she wanted was an intelligent sympathizer, not
+verbal assistance, I was willing to blunder a little. I knew she would
+speedily set me right.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are too clever to marry,&rdquo; I said at a hazard.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is one of the most popular of fallacies,&rdquo; she answered me
+crushingly. &ldquo;Why can&#8217;t clever women marry, and make just as good wives as
+the others? Why can&#8217;t a woman bend her cleverness to see that her house is
+in order, and her dinners well cooked, and buttons sewed on, as well as<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 35]</span>
+to discuss new books and keep pace with her husband intellectually? Do you
+suppose because I know Greek that I cannot be in love? Do you suppose
+because I went through higher mathematics that I never pressed a flower he
+gave me? Do you imagine that Biology kills blushing in a woman? Do you
+think that Philosophy keeps me from crying myself to sleep when I think he
+doesn&#8217;t care for me, or growing idiotically glad when he tells me he does?
+What rubbish people write upon this subject! Even Pope proved that he was
+only a man when he said,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&lsquo;Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you ever read such foolishness?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Often, my dear, often. But console yourself. A wiser than Pope says, &lsquo;The
+learned eye is still the loving one.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Browning, of course. I ought not to be surprised that the prince of poets
+should be clever enough to know that. It is from his own experience. &lsquo;Who
+writes to himself, writes to an eternal public.&rsquo; You see, Ruth, men can&#8217;t
+help looking at the question from<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 36]</span> the other side, because they form the
+other side. You might cram a woman&#8217;s head with all the wisdom of the ages,
+and while it would frighten every man who came near her into hysterics, it
+wouldn&#8217;t keep her from going down abjectly before some man who had sense
+enough to know that higher education does not rob a woman of her
+womanliness. Depend upon it, Ruth, when it does, she would have been
+unwomanly and masculine if she hadn&#8217;t been able to read. And it is the man
+who marries a woman of brains who is going to get the most out of this
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men don&#8217;t want clever wives,&rdquo; I said feebly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clever men don&#8217;t. Why is it that all the brightest men we know have
+selected girls who looked pretty and have coddled them? Look at Bronson
+and Flossy. That man is lonesome, I tell you, Ruth. He actually hungers
+and thirsts for his intellectual and moral affinity, and yet even he did
+not have the sense&mdash;the astuteness&mdash;to select a wife who would have stood
+at his side, instead of one who lay in a wad at his feet.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 37]</span> Oh, the
+bungling marriages that we see! I believe one reason is that like seldom
+marries like. For my part I do not believe in the marriage of opposites.
+Look at Robert Browning and his wife. That is my ideal marriage. Their art
+and brains were married, as well as their hands and hearts. It is pure
+music to think of it. And, to me, the most pathetic poem in the English
+language is Browning&#8217;s &lsquo;Andrea del Sarto.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&#8217;t it strange to see the kind of men who love clever women like you?
+You never could have brought yourself to marry any of them, expecting to
+find them congenial. They would have admired you in dumb silence, until
+they grew tired of feeling your superiority; after that&mdash;what?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The deluge, I suppose. Ruth, I don&#8217;t see how a woman with any
+self-respect can marry until she meets her master. That is high treason,
+isn&#8217;t it? But it is one of those sentient bits of truth which we never
+mention in society. The man I marry must have a stronger will and a
+greater brain than I have, or I should rule him. I&#8217;ll never marry until I
+find a man who knows more than I<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 38]</span> do. Yet, as to these other men who have
+loved me&mdash;you know what a tender place a woman has in her heart for the
+men who have wanted to marry her. My intellect repudiated, but my heart
+cherishes them still. Odd things, hearts. Sometimes I wish we didn&#8217;t have
+any when they ache so. I feel like disagreeing with all the poets to-day,
+because they will not say what I believe. Do you remember this, from
+Beaumont and Fletcher,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&lsquo;Of all the paths that lead to woman&#8217;s love<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">Pity&#8217;s the straightest&rsquo;?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men are fond of saying that, I notice, but I don&#8217;t think we women bear
+out the truth. I couldn&#8217;t love a man I pitied. I could love one I was
+proud of, or afraid of, but one I pitied? Never. It is more true to say it
+of men. I believe plenty of girls obtain husbands by virtue of their
+weakness, their loneliness, their helplessness, their&mdash;anything which
+makes a man pity them. Pleasant thought, isn&#8217;t it, for a woman who loves
+her own sex and wishes it held its head up better! You may say that it is
+this sort who receive more of the attentions that<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 39]</span> women love, chivalry
+and tenderness and devotion. But if all or any of these were inspired by
+pity, I&#8217;d rather not have them. I would rather a man would be rough and
+brusque with me, if he loved me heroically, than to see him fling his coat
+in the mud for me to step on, because he pitied my weakness. Do you know,
+Ruth, I think men are a good deal more human than women. You can work them
+out by algebra (for they never have more than one unknown quantity, and in
+the woman problem there would be more <em>x</em>&#8217;s than anything else), and you
+can go by rules and get the answer. But nothing ever calculated or evolved
+can get the final answer to one woman&mdash;though they do say she is fond of
+the last word! We understand ourselves intuitively, and we understand men
+by study, yet we are made the receivers, not the givers; the chosen, not
+the choosers. It really is an absurd dispensation when you view it apart
+from sentiment, yet I, for one, would not have it changed. I should not
+mind being Cupid for a while, though, and giving him a few ideas in the
+mating line.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 40]</span>&ldquo;I think women are often misjudged. Men seem to think that all we want is
+to be loved. Now, it isn&#8217;t all that I want. If I had to choose between
+being loved by a man&mdash;<em>the</em> man, let us say&mdash;and not loving him at all,
+or loving him very dearly and not being loved by him, I would choose the
+latter, for I think that more happiness comes from loving than from being
+loved.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why <em>don&#8217;t</em> you marry somebody?&rdquo; I asked in an agony of entreaty, for
+fear all of this would be wasted on me, an Old Maid, rather than upon some
+man. She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It needs a compelling, not a persuasive, power to win a woman. No man who
+takes me like this,&rdquo; closing her thumb and forefinger as if holding a
+butterfly, &ldquo;can have me. The one who dares to take me like this,&rdquo;
+clenching her hand, &ldquo;will get me. But he will not come.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then I walked with her to the door, and she bent over me, and whispered
+something about my being a &ldquo;blessed comfort&rdquo; to her, and went away. Ah,
+Tabby, my dear, it is worth while being an Old Maid to be a<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 41]</span> blessed
+comfort to anybody. But I would just like to ask you, as a cat of
+intelligence, what in the world I did for her!</p>
+
+<p>Imagine some man making that girl care for him so much. For, of course, it
+is somebody. A girl does not say such things about the abstract man.</p>
+
+<p>I was in an uplifted state of mind all day, as I am always after a talk
+with Rachel, and when Percival came in the evening, I felt that I could
+deluge him with my gathered sentiment, and he would be receptive. Besides,
+Percival has a positive genius for understanding. I did not know it,
+however, this morning. I seldom know as much in the morning as I do at
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Percival approves of sentiment. He said once that a life which had
+principle and sentiment needed little else, for principle was to stand
+upon, and sentiment was to beautify with. He said this after I had told
+him rather apologetically that I wished there was more sentiment in the
+world, because I liked it. Is it strange that I like Percival? You can&#8217;t
+help admiring people who approve of you.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 42]</span>Percival is a genius. People in general do not recognize this fact. He is
+an inarticulate genius. Men feel that he is in some occult way different
+from them, yet they do not know just how. Nor will they ever take the
+trouble to study out a problem in human nature, either in man or woman,
+unless they are philosophers.</p>
+
+<p>Women care for Percival in proportion to their intuitions. You must
+comprehend him synthetically. You cannot dissect him. With generous
+appreciation and sympathetic encouragement, Percival&#8217;s genius would become
+articulate. To discover it he must needs marry&mdash;but he must wait for the
+hundredth woman. This, of course, he will not do. If he can find a Flossy,
+he will go down on his knees to her, when she ought to be on hers to him;
+metaphorical knees, in this case.</p>
+
+<p>I am very much afraid he has found her. He is in love. You can always tell
+when a man is in love, Tabby, especially if he is not the lovering kind
+and has never been troubled in that way before. The best kind of love has
+to be so intuitive that it often is<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 43]</span> grandly, heroically awkward. Depend
+upon it, Tabby, a man who is dainty and pretty and unspeakably smooth when
+he makes love to you, has had altogether too much practice.</p>
+
+<p>Percival knows that he is in love&mdash;that is one great step in the right
+direction. But he is in that first partly alarmed, partly curious frame of
+mind that a man would be in who touched his broken arm for the first time
+to see how much it hurt. Whoever she is, he loves her deeply and thinks
+she never can care for him. He did not tell me this. If he thought that I
+knew it, he would wonder how in the world I found it out. Women are born
+lovers. They have to do the bulk of the loving all through the world. I
+told Percival so. At first he seemed surprised; then he said that it was
+true. I believe some men could go through life without loving anybody on
+earth. But the woman never lived who could do it. A woman must love
+something&mdash;even if she hasn&#8217;t anything better to love than a pug-dog or
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why aren&#8217;t women the choosers?&rdquo; said Percival seriously. The same
+question twice in one day, Tabby. &ldquo;Whenever I think of<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 44]</span> understanding the
+question of love, I wish for a woman&#8217;s intuitions. Women know so much
+about it. They absorb the whole question at a glance. But, with so many
+different kinds of women, how is a man to know anything?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I always liked Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when he
+acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and
+throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly
+towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to
+say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices
+and complexities of a woman&#8217;s nature, but they are not constituted to
+understand them by intuition as women understand men. &ldquo;The masculine
+mind,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is but ill-attuned to the subtle harmonies of the
+feminine heart.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I was secretly very much pleased at this remark, but I made myself answer
+as became an Old Maid, just to make him continue without
+self-consciousness. If I had blushed and thanked him, he would have gone
+home.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 45]</span>&ldquo;They set these things down to the natural curiousness and contrariness of
+women, and often despise what they cannot comprehend.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He answered me with the heightened consciousness and slight irritation of
+a man who has been in that fault, but has seen and mended it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All men do not. Still, how can they help it at times?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then, Tabby, I went a-sailing. I launched out on my favorite theme.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men must needs study women. Often the terror with which some men regard
+these&mdash;to us&mdash;perfectly transparent complexities, could be avoided if they
+would analyze the cause with but half the patience they display in the
+case of an ailing trotter. But no; either they edge carefully away from
+such dangers as they previously have experienced, or, if they blunder into
+new ones, they give the woman a sealskin and trust to time to heal the
+breach.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I thought of the Asburys when I said that. But Percival ruminated upon it,
+as if it touched his own case. A very good thing<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 46]</span> about Percival is that
+he does not think he knows everything. It encourages me to believe in his
+genius. To rouse him from a brown-study over this Flossy girl, I said
+rather recklessly,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I should like to be a man for a while, in order to make love to two or
+three women. I would do it in a way which should not shock them with its
+coarseness or starve them with its poverty. As it is now, most women deny
+themselves the expression of the best part of their love, because they
+know it will be either a puzzle or a terror to their lovers.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Percival was vitally interested at once.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is that really so?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Do you suppose any of them withhold
+anything from such a fear?&rdquo; His face was so uplifted that I plunged on,
+thoroughly in the dark, but, like Barkis, &ldquo;willin&#8217;.&rdquo; If I could be of use
+to him in an emergency, I was only too happy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men never realize the height of the pedestal where women in love place
+them, nor do they know with how many perfections they are invested nor how
+religiously <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 47]</span>women keep themselves deceived on the subject. They cannot
+comprehend the succession of little shocks which is caused by the real man
+coming in contact with the ideal. And if they did understand, they would
+think that such mere trifles should not affect the genuine article of
+love, and that women simply should overlook foibles, and go on loving the
+damaged article just as blindly as before. But what man could view his
+favorite marble tumbling from its pedestal continually, and losing first a
+finger, then an arm, then a nose, and would go on setting it up each time,
+admiring and reverencing in the mutilated remains the perfect creation
+which first enraptured him? He wouldn&#8217;t take the trouble to fill up the
+nicks and glue on the lost fingers as women do to their idols. He wouldn&#8217;t
+even try to love it as he used to do. When it began to look too battered
+up, he would say, &lsquo;Here, put this thing in the cellar and let&#8217;s get it out
+of the way.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Percival listened with specific interest, and admitted its truth with a
+fair-mindedness surprising even in him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 48]</span>&ldquo;Do you suppose it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a
+woman?&rdquo; he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure,
+towards that empty-headed sweetheart of his.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I really do not know,&rdquo; I said honestly. &ldquo;I think if he tried with all his
+might he could.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think&mdash;you know me better than any one else does&mdash;do you think
+<em>I</em> could, if I gave my whole mind to it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You, if anybody.&rdquo; I answered him with the occasional absolute
+truthfulness which occurs between a man and a woman when they are
+completely lifted out of themselves. Something more than mere pleasure
+shone in his eyes. It was as if I had reached his soul.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If no man ever has been all that a woman in love really believes him, the
+best a man could do would be to take care that she never found out her
+mistake,&rdquo; he said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;you are getting on. It is only another way of making
+yourself live up to her ideal of you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Supposing after all, that the woman I<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 49]</span> love will have none of me,&rdquo; he
+said, unconsciously slipping from the third person to the first.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&#8217;t admit even the possibility if I were a man. I would besiege
+the fortress. I would sit on her front doorstep until she gave in. Don&#8217;t
+ask her to have you. Tell her you are going to have her whether or no,&rdquo; I
+cried, thinking of Rachel&#8217;s words. He looked so encouraged that I am
+afraid I have sent him post-haste to the Flossy girl, and gotten him into
+life-long trouble. But I had gone too far. I quite hurried, in my
+accidental endeavor to shipwreck him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men do not understand these things, because they will not give time
+enough to them. Real love-making requires the patience, the tenderness,
+the sympathy which women alone possess in the highest degree. Possibly she
+loves you deeply, only you do not believe it. Gauged by a woman&#8217;s love,
+many men love, marry, and die, without even approximating the real grand
+passion themselves, or comprehending that which they have inspired, for no
+one but a woman can fathom a woman&#8217;s love.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 50]</span>I couldn&#8217;t help going on after I started, for he was thinking of the other
+woman, and looking at me in a way that would have made my heart turn over,
+if I hadn&#8217;t been an Old Maid, and known that his look was not for me.</p>
+
+<p>Then he ground my rings into my hand until I nearly shrieked with the
+pain, and said, &ldquo;God bless you!&rdquo; very hoarsely, and dashed out of the
+house before I could pull myself together. <em>I</em> say so too. God bless me,
+what have I done? I&#8217;ve sent him straight to that Flossy girl. I feel it.
+I&#8217;ve smoothed out something between them. I have accidentally made him
+articulate, and articulation in such a man as Percival is overpowering. He
+is a murdered man, and mine is the hand that slew him.</p>
+
+<p>Tabby, old maids are a public nuisance, not to say dangerous. They ought
+to be suppressed.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I wonder if he will burst in upon her with that look upon his face!</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 51]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>THE HEART OF A COQUETTE</strong></p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;Strange, that a film of smoke can blot a star!&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<p>He did. And the woman was&mdash;Rachel. Tabby, I never was better pleased with
+myself in my life. I love old maids. I think that whenever they are
+accidental they are perfectly lovely. But <em>what</em> a risk I ran!</p>
+
+<p>I did not know a thing about it until I received their wedding-cards. It
+was just like Rachel not to tell me, and it was insufferably stupid in me
+not to use the few wits I am possessed of, and see how matters stood. But
+my fears and tremors were that Frankie Taliaferro would get him, so I have
+watched her all this time. Percival laughed almost scornfully when I told
+him this, and said I had been barking up the wrong tree. I retaliated by
+saying that if they had been ordinary lovers, I never could have made
+such<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 52]</span> a mistake, and they took it as a great compliment. When I consider
+the general run of engaged people, I am inclined to agree with them.
+Everybody seems to think they are making an experiment of marriage,
+because they are so much alike. But, then, doesn&#8217;t every one who marries
+at all, Jew or Gentile, black or white, bond or free, make an experiment?
+I myself have no fear as to how the Percival experiment will turn out.
+Rachel says that they are so similar in all their tastes and ideals that
+if she were a man she would be Percival, and if he were a woman he would
+be Rachel. &ldquo;Then you still would have a chance to marry each other,&rdquo; I
+said frivolously. But she assented with a depth of feeling which ignored
+my feeble attempt to be cheerful. &ldquo;Yet,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;there is a
+subtle, alluring difference in our thoughts; just enough to add piquancy,
+not irritation, to a discussion. I do not love white, and he does not love
+black, as so many husbands and wives do. We both love gray; different
+tones of gray, but still gray. It is very restful.&rdquo; The Percivals are not
+only restful to themselves, but<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 53]</span> to others. They used to be in the highly
+irritable, nervous state of those whose sensitive organisms are a little
+too fine for this world. I never objected to it myself, but I have said
+before that Rachel was of no use to ordinary society, and Percival was
+little better. When people failed to understand her, she retired into
+herself with a dignity which was mistaken for ill-temper. She is too
+refined and high-minded to defend herself against the &ldquo;slings and arrows
+of outrageous&rdquo; people, although if she would, she could exterminate them
+with her wit. And some could so easily be spared. It seems, too, that she
+is great enough to be a target, so she is under fire continually. This,
+while it causes her exquisite suffering, is from no fault of her own&mdash;save
+the unforgivable one of being original. &ldquo;A frog spat at a glow-worm. &lsquo;Why
+do you spit at me?&rsquo; said the glow-worm. &lsquo;Why do you shine so?&rsquo; said the
+frog.&rdquo; And as to Percival&mdash;the man I used to know was Percival in embryo.
+He is maturing now, and is radiant in Rachel&#8217;s sympathetic comprehension
+of him. He refers to the time before he knew her as his<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 54]</span> &ldquo;protoplasmic
+state,&rdquo; as indeed it was. But there are a good many of us who would be
+willing to remain protoplasm all our lives to possess a tithe of his
+genius&mdash;you and I among the number, Tabby. You needn&#8217;t look at me so
+reproachfully out of your old-gold eyes. You know you would.</p>
+
+<p>You have seen Sallie Cox, haven&#8217;t you? Then you know how it jarred my
+nerves to have her rush in upon me when my mind was full of the Percivals.</p>
+
+<p>Sallie has flirted joyously through life thus far, and has appeared to
+have about as little heart as any girl I ever knew. Sallie is the <em>sauce
+piquante</em> in one&#8217;s life&mdash;absolutely necessary at times to make things
+taste at all, but a little of her goes a long way. At least so I thought
+until to-day.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ve got something to tell you, Ruth,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;so come with me, and we
+will take a little drive before going to cooking-school.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I went, knowing, of course, that she wanted to confide something about
+some of her lovers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am going to be married,&rdquo; she <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 55]</span>announced coldly. &ldquo;It&#8217;s Payson Osborne
+this time, and I&#8217;m really going to see the thing through. It&#8217;s rather a
+joke on me, because it commenced this way. I was sick of lovers, and some
+of the last had been so unpleasant, not to say rude, when I threw them
+over, that I thought I would take a vacation. So when I met Payson, I
+said, &lsquo;What do you say to a Platonic friendship?&rsquo; It sounds harmless, you
+know, Ruth, and he, not knowing me at all, assented. If he had been a man
+who knew of my checkered career, he would have refused, suspecting, of
+course, that I was going to flirt with him under a new name. But, as I was
+serious this time, I knew it was all right. So we began. I suppose you
+know he is enormously rich, besides being so handsome, and there will not
+be a girl in town who won&#8217;t say I raised heaven and earth to get him; but
+I don&#8217;t mind telling you, Ruth&mdash;because you are such an old dear, and
+never are bothered with lovers(!); besides, it will do me good to tell it,
+and I know you will never betray me&mdash;that I never cared for any man on
+earth except <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 56]</span>Winston Percival. You needn&#8217;t jump, and look as though the
+house was on fire. It&#8217;s the solemn truth, and I never dreamed that he
+cared for Rachel until he married her. Mind you, he never pretended to
+love me. It is every bit one-sided, and I don&#8217;t care if it is. I am glad
+that a frivolous, shallow-minded, rattle-brained thing like me had sense
+enough to fall in love with the most glorious man that ever came into her
+life. I shouldn&#8217;t have made him half as good a wife as Rachel does&mdash;I
+really feel as if they were made for each other&mdash;but he would have made a
+woman of me. I&#8217;m honestly glad he is so happy, and things are much more
+suitable as they are, for Payson is a thorough-going society man, and
+doesn&#8217;t ask much in a wife or he wouldn&#8217;t have me, and he doesn&#8217;t expect
+much from a wife or he couldn&#8217;t get me.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps you don&#8217;t know that a girl who makes a business of wearing scalps
+at her belt never stands a bit of a chance with a man she really loves,
+for she is afraid to practise on him the wiles which she knows from
+experience have been successful with<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 57]</span> scores of others, because she feels
+that he will see through them, and scorn her as she scorns herself in his
+presence. She loses her courage, she loses control of herself, and, being
+used to depend on &lsquo;business,&rsquo; as actors say, to carry out her r&ocirc;le
+successfully, she finds that she is only reading her lines, and reading
+them very badly too. If you could have seen me with Percival, you would
+know what I mean. I was dull, uninteresting, poky&mdash;no more the Sallie Cox
+that other men know than I am you. He absorbed my personality. I didn&#8217;t
+care for myself or how I appeared. I only wanted him to shine and be his
+natural, brilliant self. I never could have helped him in his work. The
+most I could have hoped to do would have been not to hinder him. I would
+have been the gainer&mdash;it would have been the act of a home missionary for
+him to marry me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She laughed drearily.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&#8217;t it horribly immoral in me to sit here and talk in this way about a
+married man? It&#8217;s a wonder it doesn&#8217;t turn the color of the cushions. If
+you hear of my having the brougham relined, Ruth, you will know<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 58]</span> why.
+Ruth, I am so miserable at times it seems to me that I shall die. I&#8217;d love
+to cry this minute&mdash;cry just as hard as I could, and scream, and beat my
+head against something hard&mdash;how do you do, Mrs. Asbury?&mdash;but instead, I
+have to bow from the windows to people, and remember that I am supposed to
+be the complaisant bride-elect of the catch of the season. It is a
+judgment on me, Ruth, to find that I have a heart, when I have always gone
+on the principle that nobody had any. Yes&mdash;how-de-do, Miss Culpepper?
+excuse me a minute, Ruth, while I hate that girl. What has she done to me?
+Oh, nothing to speak of&mdash;she only had the bad taste to fall in love with
+the man I am going to marry. Writes him notes all the time, making love to
+him, which he promptly shows to me&mdash;oh, we are not very honorable, or very
+upright, or very anything good in the Osborne matrimonial arrangement.
+Anybody but you would hate me for all this I&#8217;ve told you, but I know you
+are pitying me with all your soul, because you know the empty-headed
+Sallie Cox carries with her a very sore heart, and that it will take<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 59]</span> more
+than Payson Osborne has got to give to heal it. I call him Pay sometimes,
+but he hates it. I only do it when I think how much he does pay for a very
+bad bargain. But he doesn&#8217;t care, so why should I?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It really does seem odd, when I look back on it, to see how easy it was
+to get him, when all the time I was perfectly indifferent to him, and
+received his attentions on the Platonic basis to keep him from making love
+to me. I really think I never had any one to care for me in so exactly the
+way I like, and to be so easy in his demands, and to think me so
+altogether perfect and charming, no matter what I do. It was because I was
+absolutely indifferent to him. I never cared when he came. I never cared
+when he went. Other lovers fussed and quarrelled and were jealous and
+disagreeable when I flirted with other men, but Payson never cared. He
+didn&#8217;t tease me, you know. And whenever he said anything, I could look
+innocent and say, &lsquo;Is that Platonic friendship?&rsquo; So he would have to
+subside. I know he thought some of my indifference was assumed, for when
+he told<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 60]</span> me about Miss Culpepper he thought I would be vexed. I <em>was</em>
+vexed, but I had presence of mind not to show it. I only laughed and made
+no comment at all&mdash;asked him what time it was, I believe. Then when he
+looked so disappointed and sulky, I knew I was right, and I patted Sallie
+Cox on the head for being so clever&mdash;so clever as not to care, chiefly.
+There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you cannot do with a man who loves
+you, if you don&#8217;t care a speck for him. And the luxury of perfect
+indifference! Emotions are awfully wearing, Ruth. I wonder that these
+emotional women like Rachel get on at all. I should think they would die
+of the strain. Men are always deadly afraid of such women. I believe
+Payson wouldn&#8217;t stop running till he got to California if I should burst
+into tears and not be able to tell him instantly just exactly where my
+neuralgia had jumped to. No unknown waverings and quaverings of the heart
+for my good Osborne. There goes Alice Asbury again. I am dying to tell you
+something. You know why she hates me, and understand why she treats me<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 61]</span> so
+abominably? Well, Asbury gave her the same engagement ring he gave me, and
+she doesn&#8217;t know it. Rich, isn&#8217;t it? Here we are at the cooking-school. I
+am so glad I can slam a carriage-door without being rude. It is such a
+relief to one&#8217;s overcharged feelings.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tabby, dear, if your head ever spun round and round at some of the
+confidences I have bestowed upon you, I can sympathize with you, for, as I
+went into that class, my feelings were so wrenched and twisted that I was
+as limp as cooked macaroni. You will excuse the simile, but that was one
+of the articles at cooking-school to-day, and when the teacher took it up
+on a fork, it did express my state of mind so exquisitely that I cannot
+forbear to use it.</p>
+
+<p>Sallie Cox! Well, I am amazed. Who would think that that bright, saucy,
+clever little flirt, who rides on the crest of the wave always, could have
+such a heart history? And Percival of all men! I wonder what he would say
+if he knew. I don&#8217;t know what to think about her marrying Payson Osborne.
+The last thing she whispered to<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 62]</span> me as we came out of cooking-school was,
+&ldquo;Don&#8217;t be too sorry for me because I am going to marry him. Believe me, it
+is the very best thing that could happen to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I am very fond of the girl to-night. What a pity it is that everybody does
+not know her as she really is! No one understands her, and she has flirted
+so outrageously with most of the men that the girls&#8217; friendship for her is
+very hollow. A few, of whom Alice Asbury is one, dare to show this quite
+plainly, and of course Sallie doesn&#8217;t like it. She pretends not to care
+for women&#8217;s friendship, but she does. She would love to be friendly with
+all the girls, but they remember the misery she has made them suffer, and
+won&#8217;t have it.</p>
+
+<p>Still, there is no doubt that she is marrying the man most of them want,
+so that again she triumphs. But, unless I am much mistaken, even as Mrs.
+Payson Osborne it will take her a long time to recover her place with the
+women which she has lost by having so many of their sweethearts and
+brothers in love with her.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, Tabby, what a deal of secret misery<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 63]</span> there is in the world! Everybody
+will envy Sallie Cox and think that she is the luckiest girl, and Sallie
+will smile and pretend&mdash;for what other course is left to her, and who can
+blame women who pretend under such circumstances? Perhaps there are
+reasons just as good for many other pretenders in this world. Who knows?
+We would be gentler if we knew more.</p>
+
+<p>There will be other sore hearts besides Sallie&#8217;s at her wedding. I had
+heard before that Miss Culpepper was quite desperate over Osborne, but, as
+she was a girl whom everybody thought a lady, I had no idea that she had
+gone so far as Sallie says. Osborne probably didn&#8217;t object to being made
+love to. A man of his stamp would not be over-refined. Strange, now,
+Sallie does not love Osborne herself, but she promptly hates every other
+girl who dares to do it. Aren&#8217;t girls queer?</p>
+
+<p>Then there are a score of men who will gnash their teeth for Sallie&mdash;so
+many men love these Sallie Coxes.</p>
+
+<p>Frankie Taliaferro, the Kentucky beauty, who is staying with her this
+winter, tells me<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 64]</span> that Sallie has had several dreadful scenes with
+discarded suitors&mdash;that one said he would forbid the banns, and another
+threatened to shoot himself if she really married Osborne.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder how many marriages there really are where both are perfectly free
+to marry. I mean, no secret entanglements on either side, no other man
+wanting the bride, no girl bitterly jealous of her. I never heard of
+one&mdash;not among the people <em>I</em> know, at least.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, Tabby, think of all the fusses people keep out of who promptly settle
+down at the appointed time and become peaceful old maids. How sensible we
+were, Tabby, you and Missis.</p>
+
+<p>But doesn&#8217;t it seem to you that people marry from very mixed motives? I
+used to have an idea&mdash;when I was painfully young, of course&mdash;that they
+married because they were so fortunate as to fall in love with each other.
+Are you quite sure that foolish notion is out of your head too?</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 65]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD</strong></p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?... To be great is to be
+misunderstood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<p>I have been away since early last summer, and consequently never had seen
+Flossy&#8217;s new baby until the newness had worn off, and it had arrived at
+the dignity of a backbone, and had left its wobbly period far behind. I am
+in mortal terror of a very little baby. It feels so much like a sponge,
+yet lacks the sponge&#8217;s recuperative qualities. I am always afraid if I
+dent it the dents will stay in. You know they don&#8217;t in a sponge.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I came home, of course I went to see Flossy&#8217;s baby, and was
+very much disconcerted to discover that she had named it for me. I was
+afraid, I remember, that she would want to name the first girl for me, but
+she did not. She named her after<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 66]</span> Rachel. I had an uncomfortable idea,
+however, that my name had been discussed and vetoed, by either Flossy or
+Bronson. But this time the baby is named Ruth, and I found that it was all
+Flossy&#8217;s doing.</p>
+
+<p>I was irritated without knowing why. I didn&#8217;t want anybody to know it
+though, and so I was vexed when Bronson said to me, &ldquo;I couldn&#8217;t help it,
+Ruth.&rdquo; There was no use in pretending not to understand. I could with some
+men, but not with Bronson. He is too magnificently honest himself, and
+uplifts me by expecting me to be equally so. Nevertheless I failed him in
+one particular, for I answered him in my loftiest manner, &ldquo;I am not at all
+displeased. It is a great compliment, I am sure.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing so uncivil at times as to be cuttingly polite. What I
+said wasn&#8217;t so at all. But a woman is obliged to defend herself from a man
+who reads her like an open book.</p>
+
+<p>Flossy does not like children, and poor little Rachel never has had a life
+of roses. Flossy says children are such a care and require so much
+attention.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 67]</span>&ldquo;Rachel was all that I could attend to, and here all winter I have had
+another one on my hands to keep me at home, and make me lose sleep, and
+grow old before my time. I don&#8217;t see why such burdens have to be put upon
+people. Children are too thick in this world any way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She fretted on in this strain for some time, until Bronson looked up and
+said,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&#8217;t, Flossy. You don&#8217;t mean what you say. Do tell her the little thing
+is welcome.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do mean what I say,&rdquo; answered Flossy.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as Bronson left the room abruptly, Flossy said,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And I was determined to name her after you. Bronson didn&#8217;t want me to. He
+said you wouldn&#8217;t thank me for it, but I told him that Rachel Percival was
+quite delighted with her namesake.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I hid my indignantly smarting eyes in the folds of the baby&#8217;s dress, as I
+held her up before my face, and made her laugh at the flowers in my hat.
+Flossy thought I was not listening to her with sufficient interest; so she
+got up and crossed the room with<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 68]</span> that little stumble of hers, which used
+to be so taking with the men when she was a girl, and took Ruth away from
+me.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great contrast between the two children. Rachel Herrick is a
+shy child, with a delicate, refined face, lighted by wonderful gray eyes
+like Bronson&#8217;s. I do not understand her. She seems afraid of me, and I
+confess I am equally afraid of her. Even Rachel Percival does not get on
+with her very well, although she has bravely tried. The child spends most
+of her time in the library, devouring all the books she can lay her hands
+on. Little Ruth is a round, soft, fluffy baby, all dimples and smiles and
+good-nature, willing to roll or crawl into anybody&#8217;s lap or affections. A
+very good baby to exhibit, for strangers delight in her, and pet her just
+as people always have petted Flossy. Rachel stands mutely watching all
+such demonstrations, her pale face rigid with some emotion, and her eyes
+brilliant and hard. She is not a child one would dare take liberties with.
+No one ever pets her. Flossy complains continually of her to visitors and
+to <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 69]</span>Bronson, so that Bronson has gotten into the way of reproving her
+mechanically whenever his eye rests upon her. Her very presence, always
+silent, always inwardly critical, seems to irritate her parents. She was
+not doing a thing, but sitting sedately, with a heavy book on her lap,
+watching the baby, with that curious expression on her face; but Flossy
+couldn&#8217;t let her alone.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Baby loves her mother, doesn&#8217;t she? She is not like naughty sister
+Rachel, who won&#8217;t do anything but read, and never loves anybody but
+herself. Sister says bad things to poor sick mamma, and mamma can&#8217;t love
+her, can she? But mamma loves her pretty, sweet baby, so she does.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Rachel glanced at me with a hunted look in her eyes which wrung my heart.
+But, before I could think, she slid down and the big book fell with a
+crash to the floor. She ran towards the baby with a wicked look on her
+small face, and the baby leaped and held out its hands, but Rachel
+clenched her teeth, and slapped the outstretched hand as she rushed past
+her and out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Ruth looked at the red place<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 70]</span> on her hand a minute, then her
+lip quivered, and she began to cry pitifully.</p>
+
+<p>I instinctively looked to see Flossy gather her up to comfort her. It is
+so easy to dry a child&#8217;s tears with a little love. But she rang for the
+nurse and fretfully exclaimed,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&#8217;t that just like her! I declare I can&#8217;t see why a child of mine
+should have such a wicked temper. Here, Simpson, take this young nuisance
+and stop her crying. Oh, poor little me! Ruth, I&#8217;m thankful that you have
+no children to wear your life out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I dryly remarked that I too considered it rather a cause for gratitude,
+and came away.</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Rachel Herrick! Unlovely as her action was, I cannot help
+thinking that it was unpremeditated; that it was the unexpected result of
+some strong inward feeling. She looked like one who was justly indignant,
+and, considering what Flossy had said, I felt that her anger was
+righteous. That her disposition is unfortunate cannot be denied. She seems
+already to be an Ishmaelite, for whenever she speaks it is to fling out a
+remark so biting in its<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 71]</span> sarcasm, so bitter and satirical, that Flossy is
+afraid of her, and Bronson reproves her with unnecessary severity, because
+her offence is that of a grown person, which her childish stature mocks.
+Other children both fear and hate her. They resent her cleverness. They
+like to use her wits to organize their plays, but they never include her,
+for she always wants to lead, feeling, doubtless, that she inherently
+possesses the qualities of a leader, and chafing, as a heroic soul must,
+under inferior management. Flossy makes her go out to play regularly with
+them every day, but it is a pitiful sight, for she feels her unpopularity,
+and children are cruel to each other with the cruelty of vindictive
+dulness; so Rachel, after standing about among them forlornly for a while,
+like a stray robin among a flock of little owls, comes creeping in alone,
+and sits down in the library with a book. She is the loneliest child I
+ever knew. If she cared, people would at least be sorry for her; but she
+seems to love no one, never seeks sympathy if she is hurt, repels all
+attempts to ease pain, and cures herself with<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 72]</span> her beloved books. I never
+saw any one kiss or offer to pet her, but they make a great fuss over the
+baby, and Rachel watches them with glittering eyes. I thought once that it
+was jealousy, and, going up to her, laid my hand on her head, but she
+shook it off as if it had been a viper, and ran out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>I had grown very fond of my namesake, and used to go there when Flossy was
+away, and sit in the nursery. The nurse told me once that Mrs. Herrick saw
+so little of the baby that it was afraid, and cried at the sight of her. I
+reproved her for speaking in that manner of her mistress, but she only
+tossed her head knowingly, and I dropped the subject. Servants often are
+aware of more than we give them credit for.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday before Easter I stopped at Flossy&#8217;s, but she was not at home. I
+left some flowers for her, and asked to see the baby, but the nurse said
+she was asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Easter morning I did not go to church, and Rachel Percival came early in
+the afternoon to see if I were ill. While she was here this note arrived
+by a messenger:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 73]</span></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Dear Ruth</span>,&mdash;I know you will grieve for me when I tell you that our
+baby went away from us quite suddenly this morning, while the
+Easter bells were ringing so joyfully. They rang the knell of a
+mother&#8217;s heart, for they rang my baby&#8217;s spirit into Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I feel, through my tears, that it is better so, for she will bind
+me closer to Heaven when I think that she, in her purity, awaits me
+there.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hoping to see you very soon, I am</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 12em;">&ldquo;Your loving &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Flossy</span>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;P.S.&mdash;Bronson seems to feel the baby&#8217;s death to a truly
+astonishing degree.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; F. H.&rdquo;</p></div>
+
+<p>I flung the note across to Rachel, and, putting my head down on my two
+arms, I cried just as hard as I could cry.</p>
+
+<p>Rachel read it, then tore it into twenty bits, and ground her heel into
+the fragments.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Rachel Percival! what is the matter?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She wasn&#8217;t even at home. She was at church. She must have been. She told
+me that Bronson was afraid to have her leave the baby, and wouldn&#8217;t come
+himself, but that she didn&#8217;t think anything was the matter with it, and
+wouldn&#8217;t be tied down. Then<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 74]</span> such a note so soon afterwards! Ruth, what is
+that woman made of?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>We went together to Flossy&#8217;s. She came across the room to meet us,
+supported by Bronson. She stumbled two or three times in the attempt.
+Tears were running down Bronson&#8217;s face, and he wiped them away quite
+humbly, as if he did not mind our seeing them in the least. I could not
+bear to watch him, so I slipped out of the room and went upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In here, &#8217;m,&rdquo; said the nurse; &ldquo;and Miss Rachel is here too. She won&#8217;t
+move that far from the cradle, and she hasn&#8217;t shed a tear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ruth lay peacefully in her little lace crib, covered with violets, and
+beside her, rigid and white and tearless, stood Rachel. I was almost
+afraid of the child as I looked at her. She turned her great eyes upon me
+dumbly, with so exactly Bronson&#8217;s expression in them that all at once I
+understood her. I knelt down beside her, and gathering her little tense
+frame all up in my arms, I began whispering to her. The tears rolled down
+her cheeks, and soon<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 75]</span> she was crying hysterically. Bronson came bounding
+upstairs at the sound, but she seized me more tightly around the neck and
+held me chokingly. I motioned him back, and succeeded in carrying her away
+to a quiet place, where I sat down with her in my arms, and made love to
+her for hours.</p>
+
+<p>I never heard a more pitiful story than she told me, between strangling
+sobs, of her hungry life. The child has been yearning for affection all
+the time, but has unconsciously repelled it by her manner. She said nobody
+on earth loved her except the baby, and now the baby was dead.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is no use of your trying to make things different,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;especially with mamma. She wouldn&#8217;t care if I was dead too. But papa
+could understand, I think, if he would only try to love me. But I love
+you&mdash;oh! I love you so much that it hurts me. Nobody ever came and hugged
+me up the way you did, in my whole life. You have made things over for me,
+and I&#8217;ll love you for it till I die. Why is it that everybody gives mamma
+and the baby so much love, when they never cared for it, and I care so<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 76]</span>
+much and never get a single bit? Nobody understands me, and every
+one&mdash;every one calls me bad. I&#8217;m not bad. I love plenty of people who
+can&#8217;t love me. I am not bad, I tell you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She cried herself nearly sick, and then, exhausted, fell asleep, with her
+face pressed against mine. Thus Bronson found us. He offered to take her,
+and I put her into his arms. Then I told him all that she had said, and
+asked him to hold her until she wakened, and give her some of the love her
+little heart was hungering for. He couldn&#8217;t speak when I finished, and I
+went down, to find Rachel bathing Flossy&#8217;s head with cologne, and looking
+worn and tired.</p>
+
+<p>Percival came for Rachel, and one could see that the mere sight of him
+rested her. She told him all about it, in her wonderfully comprehensive
+way, and he felt the whole thing, and we were all very quiet and peaceful
+and sad, as we drove home through the early darkness of that Easter day.</p>
+
+<p>They left me at my door, and I went in alone, with the memory of that
+grieving household&mdash;the lonely father, and the <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 77]</span>selfish mother, and the
+unloved child&mdash;hallowed and made tender by the presence of the little dead
+baby, asleep under its weight of violets.</p>
+
+<p>I feel very much alone sometimes; but the Percivals carry their world with
+them.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 78]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE</strong></p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;I am myself indifferent honest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<p>I have just made two startling discoveries. One is that I am not honest
+myself, and the other is that I detest honesty in other people.</p>
+
+<p>To-day I was sitting peacefully in my room, harming nobody, when I saw
+little Pet Winterbotham drive up in her cart and come running up to the
+door. I supposed she had come with a message from her sister, and went
+down, thinking to be detained about ten minutes.</p>
+
+<p>It seems but a few years ago since Pet was in the kindergarten. I was
+surprised to see that she wore her dresses very long, and that she looked
+almost grown up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear Pet,&rdquo; I exclaimed, &ldquo;what is the matter?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 79]</span>&ldquo;Oh, Miss Ruth, I am in such a scrape,&rdquo; she answered me. &ldquo;I hope you won&#8217;t
+think it&#8217;s queer that I came to you, but the fact is, I&#8217;ve watched you in
+church, and you always look as if you knew, and would help people if they
+would ask you to; so I thought I&#8217;d try you.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ever and ever so long ago, when I was a little bit of a thing, and played
+with other children, and you and sister Grace went out together, I used to
+&lsquo;choose&rsquo; you from all the other young ladies, because you wore such lovely
+hats, and always had on pearl-colored gloves. I suppose it is so long ago
+that you were a young lady and had beaux that you&#8217;ve forgotten it. But I
+know you used to have lovers, for I heard Mrs. Herrick and Mrs. Payson
+Osborne talking about you once, and Mrs. Herrick said you seemed so
+tranquil and contented that she supposed you never had had any really good
+offers, or you would be all the time wishing you had taken one. And Mrs.
+Osborne spoke up in her quick way, and said, &lsquo;Don&#8217;t deceive yourself so
+comfortably, my dear Flossy. I know positively that Ruth has had several<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 80]</span>
+offers that you and I would have jumped at.&rsquo; And then she turned away and
+laughed and laughed, although I didn&#8217;t see anything so very funny in what
+she said, and neither did Mrs. Herrick.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do think Mrs. Osborne is the loveliest person I know. She is my ideal
+young married woman. She always has a smile and a pretty word for every
+one, and young men like her better than they do the buds. Why, your face
+is as red as fire. I hope I haven&#8217;t said anything unpleasant. Mamma says I
+blunder horribly, but she always is too busy to tell me how not to
+blunder.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, I want to know which of these two men you would advise me to marry.
+I&#8217;ve got to take one, I suppose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marry!&rdquo; I exclaimed, so explosively that Pet started. &ldquo;Why, child, how
+old are you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m nineteen,&rdquo; she said, in rather an injured tone, &ldquo;and I&#8217;ve always made
+up my mind to marry young, if I got a good enough offer. I hate old maids.
+Oh, excuse me. I don&#8217;t mean you, of course. I wouldn&#8217;t marry a clerk, you
+understand, just to be<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 81]</span> marrying. I&#8217;m not so silly. I have plenty of
+common-sense in other things, and I&#8217;m going to put some of it into the
+marriage question. Don&#8217;t you think I&#8217;m sensible?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very,&rdquo; I answered; but I didn&#8217;t, Tabby. I thought she was a goose.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well now,&rdquo; proceeded my young caller, settling her ribbons with a pretty
+air of importance, and looking at me out of the most innocent eyes in the
+world, &ldquo;my sister Grace married Brian Beck because he had such a lot of
+money. But you know he is dissipated, and at first Grace almost went
+distracted. Then she made up her mind to let him go his own gait, and she
+has as good a time as she can on his money. His Irish name Brian is her
+thorn in the flesh, and he teases her nearly out of her wits about it. We
+have great fun on the yacht every summer. Brian is awfully good to me, and
+invites nice men to take with us; still, much as I like Brian as a
+brother-in-law, I shouldn&#8217;t care to have a husband like him. Now, I
+suppose you wonder why on earth I am telling you these things, and why I
+don&#8217;t tell one of the girls I go with.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 82]</span>&ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; I exclaimed in protest.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course. I see you think it wouldn&#8217;t be safe. Girls just can&#8217;t help
+telling, to save their lives. Sometimes they don&#8217;t intend to, and then
+it&#8217;s bad enough. But sometimes they do it just to be mean, and you can&#8217;t
+help yourself. I have plenty of confidence in you though, and you don&#8217;t
+look as if you&#8217;d be easily shocked. You look as though you could tell a
+good deal if you wanted to. You&#8217;re an awfully comfortable sort of a
+person. Now, let me tell you. I have two offers. One is from Clinton
+Frost, and the other is from Jack Whitehouse. You have seen me with Mr.
+Frost, haven&#8217;t you? A dark, fierce, melancholy man, with black eyes and
+hair, and very distinguished looking.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think he has a history. He throws out hints that way. He is gloomy with
+everybody but me, and Brian will do nothing but joke with him. There is
+nothing Mr. Frost dislikes as much as to laugh or to see other people
+laugh. Brian calls him &lsquo;Pet&#8217;s nightmare,&rsquo; and threatens to give him ink to
+drink.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 83]</span>&ldquo;I believe Mr. Frost hates Brian. He says the name of our yacht, <em>Hittie
+Magin</em>, is unspeakably vulgar. Nothing pleases Brian more than to force
+Mr. Frost or Grace to tell strangers the name of it. Their mere speaking
+the words throws Brian into convulsions of laughter. Then, if people
+comment on it, he tells them that the name is of his wife&#8217;s selection, in
+deference to his Irish family. And Grace almost faints with mortification.
+Mr. Frost says he will give me a yacht twice as good as Brian&#8217;s. He adores
+me. He says I am the only thing in life which makes him smile.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I felt that I could sympathize with Mr. Frost on this point.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then there&#8217;s Jack Whitehouse, Norris Whitehouse&#8217;s nephew. Mr. Norris
+Whitehouse is a great friend of yours, isn&#8217;t he? Do you know, I never
+think of him as an &lsquo;eligible,&rsquo; although he is a bachelor. I should as soon
+think of a king in that light. He impresses me more than any man I ever
+knew. Don&#8217;t you consider him odd? No? I do. He is so clever that you would
+be afraid of him, if it wasn&#8217;t for his lovely <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 84]</span>manners, which make you
+feel as though what you are saying is just what he has been wanting to
+know, and he is so glad he has met some one who is able to tell him.
+Actually he treats me with more respect than some of the young men do. He
+makes me feel as if I were a woman, and he had a right to expect something
+good of me. I never said that to anybody before, but I can talk to you and
+feel that you understand me. I like to feel that people think there is
+something to me, even if I know that it isn&#8217;t much. Mrs. Asbury says that
+Mr. Whitehouse is the courtliest man she knows. You know the story of the
+Whitehouse money, don&#8217;t you? Jack told it to me with tears in his eyes,
+and I don&#8217;t wonder at it. You know Jack&#8217;s father and mother died when he
+was very young. Norris was his father&#8217;s favorite, and the old gentleman
+made a most unjust will, leaving only a life interest in the property to
+Jack&#8217;s father; then it all went to his favorite younger son, Norris. Now,
+you know what most men would do under the circumstances. They would
+acknowledge the injustice of the will, but they<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 85]</span> would keep the money.
+This proves to me what an unusual man Mr. Norris Whitehouse is, for he
+immediately made over to his little nephew Jack one half of the
+property&mdash;just what his father ought to have been able to leave him&mdash;and
+Jack is to come into that when he is twenty-five. Don&#8217;t you think that was
+noble? Jack worships him. He says no father could have been more devoted
+to an only son than his uncle Norris has been to him. He travelled with
+him, and gave up years of his life to superintending Jack&#8217;s education.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, whoever marries Jack will really be at the head of that elegant
+house, for you know it hasn&#8217;t had a mistress since Jack&#8217;s mother died,
+years ago. I should like that, although I do wish more of the expense was
+in furniture instead of in pictures and tapestries. But that is his
+uncle&#8217;s taste.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Jack talks so beautifully about his young mother, whom he can
+scarcely remember. He says his uncle has kept her alive to him. He is
+perfectly lovely with other fellows&#8217; mothers, and with mine. He treats
+them all, he says, as he should like to have<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 86]</span> had others treat his mother.
+Of course it is only sentiment with him. If she had lived, he might have
+given her as much trouble as other boys give theirs. She must have been
+lovely. Mamma says she was. But I&#8217;d just as soon not have any
+mother-in-law to tell me to wrap up, and wear rubbers if it looked like
+rain. You know there isn&#8217;t a bit of sentiment in me. I&#8217;m practical. My
+father says if I had been a boy he would have taken me into business at
+fifteen. Jack thinks I am all sentiment. He says nobody could have a face
+like mine and not possess an innate love of the beautiful in art and
+poetry and all that. I have forgotten just what he said about that part of
+it. But I know he meant to praise me. I didn&#8217;t say anything in reply, but
+I smiled to myself at the idea of Pet Winterbotham being credited with
+fine sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jack is horribly young&mdash;only twenty-two&mdash;so he won&#8217;t have his money for
+three years, and Mr. Frost is thirty-nine. Jack has curly hair, and when
+he wears a white tennis suit and puts his cap on the back of his head and
+holds a cigarette in his hand,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 87]</span> he looks as if he had just stepped out of
+one of the pictures in <em>Life</em>. He looks so &lsquo;chappie.&rsquo; He is a good deal
+easier to get along with than Mr. Frost, and will have more money some
+day, although Mr. Frost has enough. Now, which would you take?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, my dear Pet,&rdquo; I said in an unguarded moment, &ldquo;which do you love?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I shrivelled visibly under the look of scorn she cast upon me.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&#8217;t love either of them. I&#8217;ve had one love affair and I don&#8217;t care
+for another until I make sure which man I&#8217;m going to marry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Can you fall in love to order?&rdquo; I asked in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not exactly. &lsquo;To order!&rsquo; Why, no. Anybody would think you were having
+boots made. But it&#8217;s being with a man, and having him awfully good to you,
+and admiring everything you say, and having lots of good clothes, and not
+being in love with any other fellow, that makes you love a man. I&#8217;m sure
+from your manner that you like Jack Whitehouse the best, so I think I&#8217;ll
+take him. You are awfully sweet, and<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 88]</span> not a bit like an old maid. I tell
+everybody so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Am I called an Old Maid?&rdquo; I asked quickly. I could have bitten my tongue
+out for it afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes indeed, by all the younger set. You see you belonged to Grace&#8217;s
+set and they are all married. It makes you seem like a back number to us,
+but you don&#8217;t look like an old maid. I suppose you can look back ages and
+ages and remember when you had lovers, can&#8217;t you? Or have you forgotten? I
+can&#8217;t imagine you ever getting love-letters or flowers or any such things.
+I hope I haven&#8217;t offended you. I am horribly honest, you know. I say just
+what I think, and you mustn&#8217;t mind it. Mamma says I am too truthful to be
+pleasant. But I like honesty myself, don&#8217;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And with that, Tabby, she went away.</p>
+
+<p>How terrible the child is! Now, Pet is one of those persons who go about
+lacerating people and clothing their ignorance, or their insolence, in the
+garb of honesty.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am honest,&rdquo; say they, &ldquo;so you must not be offended, but is it true that
+your<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 89]</span> grandfather was hanged for being a pirate?&rdquo; Or, &ldquo;I believe in being
+perfectly honest with people. How cross-eyed you are!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This is why honesty is so disreputable. When you say of a woman, &ldquo;She is
+one of those honest, outspoken persons,&rdquo; it means that she will probably
+hurt your feelings, or insult you in your first interview with her.</p>
+
+<p>I don&#8217;t like to admit it even to you, Tabby, but I am horribly shaken up.
+After all these years of talking about myself to you as an Old Maid, and
+knowing that I am one, to hear myself called such, and to catch a glimpse
+of the way I appear to the oncoming generation, shakes me to the
+foundation of my being. Soon <em>I</em> shall be pushed to the wall, as something
+too worn out to be needed by bright young people. Soon <em>I</em> shall be one of
+the old people whom I have so dreaded all my life. Dear Tabby-cat! You can
+remember when Missis received love-letters, can&#8217;t you? They are not all in
+the japanned box, are they? Do I seem old to you, kitty? Why, there is
+actually a<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 90]</span> tear on your gray fur. Dear me, what a silly Old Maid Missis
+is!</p>
+
+<p>You see, after all, I have not been honest, even with myself. And, just
+between you and me, I will say that I abominate honesty in other people.
+There!</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 91]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>A GAME OF HEARTS</strong></p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;Man proposes, but Heaven disposes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<p>Tabby, did you ever hear me speak of Charlie Hardy? No, of course not.
+Your mother must have been a kitten when I knew Charlie the best. He is a
+nice boy. Boy! What am I talking about? He is as old as I am. But he is
+the kind of man who always seems a boy, and everybody who has known him
+two days calls him Charlie.</p>
+
+<p>Rachel Percival never thought much of him. She said he was weak, and
+weakness in a man is something Rachel never excuses. She says it is
+trespassing on one of the special privileges of our sex. Thus she disposed
+of Charlie Hardy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look at his chin,&rdquo; said Rachel; &ldquo;could a man be strong with a chin like
+that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 92]</span>&ldquo;But he is so kind-hearted and easy to get along with,&rdquo; I urged.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very likely. He hasn&#8217;t strength of mind to quarrel. He is unwilling, like
+most easy-going men, to inflict that kind of pain. But he could be as
+cruel as the grave in other ways. Look at him. He always is in hot water
+about something, and never does as people expect him to do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But he doesn&#8217;t do wrong on purpose, and he makes charming excuses and
+apologies.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He ought to; he has had enough practice,&rdquo; answered Rachel, with her
+beautiful smile. &ldquo;He has what I call a conscience for surface things. He
+regards life from the wrong point of view, and, as to his always intending
+to do right&mdash;you know the place said to be paved with good intentions. No,
+no, Ruth. Charlie Hardy is a dangerous man, because he is weak. Through
+such men as he comes very bitter sorrow in this world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>That conversation, Tabby, took place, if not before you were created, at
+least in your early infancy&mdash;the time when your own<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 93]</span> weight threw you down
+if you tried to walk, and when ears and tail were the least of your
+make-up.</p>
+
+<p>All these years Charlie has never married, but was always with the girls.
+He dropped with perfect composure from our set to Sallie Cox&#8217;s&mdash;was her
+slave for two years, though Sallie declares that she never was engaged to
+him. &ldquo;What&#8217;s the use of being engaged to a man that you can keep on hand
+without?&rdquo; quoth Sallie. But Charlie bore no malice. &ldquo;I didn&#8217;t stand the
+ghost of a show with a girl like Sallie, when she had such men as Winston
+Percival and those literary chaps around her. It was great sport to watch
+her with those men. You know what a little chatterbox she is. By Jove!
+when that fellow Percival began to talk, Sallie never had a word to say
+for herself. It must have been awfully hard for her, but she certainly let
+him do all the talking, and just sat and listened, looking as sweet as a
+peach. Oh! I never had any chance with Sallie.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, he was usher at her wedding, then dropped peacefully to the
+next<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 94]</span> younger set, and now is going with girls of Pet Winterbotham&#8217;s age.</p>
+
+<p>I thoroughly like the boy, but I can&#8217;t imagine myself falling in love with
+him. If I were married to another man&mdash;an indiscreet thing for an Old Maid
+to say, Tabby, but I only use it for illustration&mdash;I should not mind
+Charlie Hardy&#8217;s dropping in for Sunday dinner every week, if he wanted to.
+He never bothers. He never is in the way. He is as deft at buttoning a
+glove as he is amiable at playing cards. You always think of Charlie Hardy
+first if you are making up a theatre party. He serves equally well as
+groomsman or pall-bearer&mdash;although I do not speak from experience in
+either instance. He never is cross or sulky. He makes the best of
+everything, and I think men say that he is &ldquo;an all-round good fellow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I depend a great deal upon other men&#8217;s opinion of a man. I never
+thoroughly trust a man who is not a favorite with his own sex. I wish men
+were as generous to us in that respect, for a woman whom other women do
+not like is just as dangerous. And I never knew simple jealousy&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 95]</span>
+reason men urge against accepting our verdict&mdash;to be universal enough to
+condemn a woman. There always are a few fair-minded women in every
+community&mdash;just enough to be in the minority&mdash;to break continuous
+jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>Be that as it may, the man I am talking about has kept up his acquaintance
+with Rachel and Alice Asbury and me in a desultory way, and occasionally
+he grows confidential. The last time I saw him he said:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes I wish I were a woman, Ruth, when I get into so much trouble
+with the girls. Women never seem to have any worry over love affairs. All
+they have to do is to lean back and let men wait on them until they see
+one that suits them. It is like ordering from a <em>menu</em> card for them to
+select husbands. You run over a list for a girl&mdash;oysters, clams, or
+terrapin&mdash;and she takes terrapin. In the other case she runs over her own
+list&mdash;Smith, Jones, or Robinson&mdash;and likewise takes the rarest. But she is
+not at all troubled about it. Marrying is so easy for a girl. It comes
+natural to her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 96]</span>Tabby, I did wish that he knew as much of the internal mechanism of the
+engagements that you and I have participated in, by proxy, as we do&mdash;if he
+would understand, profit by, and speedily forget the knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>But, like the hypocrite I am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for
+women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller
+ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit,
+Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their
+lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as &ldquo;making
+up their minds.&rdquo; You see I uphold my own sex at all hazards&mdash;to men.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing up to go when he said that, but there was something about
+him which led me to suspect that he was in a condition when he needed some
+woman to straighten out his affairs. I made no reply, which threw the
+burden of continuing the conversation upon him. I was in that passive
+state which made me perfectly willing to have him say good-night and go
+home<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 97]</span> or stay and confess to me, just as he chose. I knew he needed me; a
+good many men need their mothers once in a while as much as they ever did
+when boys. There was something whimsically boyish about Charlie as he
+leaned over the back of a tall chair and debated secretly whether or not
+he should confide in me.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&#8217;t you ask me why I said that?&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because I know without asking. You were induced to say it by what you
+have been thinking of all the evening. It sounded like a beginning, but
+really it was an ending.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He looked as though he thought me a mind-reader, but I fancy the knack of
+divining when people need a confidant is preternaturally developed in old
+maids.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How good you are, Ruth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You men always think women are good when they understand you. But it
+isn&#8217;t goodness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, you&#8217;re right. It&#8217;s more comfortable than goodness. It&#8217;s odd how you
+do it. May I tell you about it? You won&#8217;t think<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 98]</span> half as well of me as you
+do now, but it needs just such women as you to keep men straight, and if
+you will give me your opinion I vow I&#8217;ll do as you say, even if it kills
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I was afraid from that desperate ending that it was something serious, and
+it was. He made several attempts before he could begin. Finally he burst
+out with,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Although you are the easiest person in the world to talk to, and I&#8217;ve
+known you always, it is pretty hard to lay this case before you so that
+you won&#8217;t think me a conceited prig. That is because you are a woman and
+can&#8217;t help looking at it from a woman&#8217;s standpoint. For a good many
+reasons it would be easier to tell it to some man, who would know how it
+was himself; but you see I want a woman&#8217;s conscience and a woman&#8217;s
+judgment, because you can put yourself in another woman&#8217;s place.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He grew quite red as he talked, and I waited patiently for him to go on,
+but gave him no help.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, here goes. If you hate me afterwards I can&#8217;t help it. I had no idea
+it would be so hard to tell you or I shouldn&#8217;t<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 99]</span> have attempted it. But
+since you have been sitting there looking at me I am beginning to think
+differently of it myself, and I&#8217;m sure that, with all your kindness, you
+will be very hard on me, and tell me to accept the hardest alternative.
+Now, Ruth, you&#8217;d better shake hands with me and say good-by while you like
+me, because you will think of me as another Charlie Hardy when I&#8217;ve
+finished.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He actually held out his hand, but I folded mine together.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said, smiling, &ldquo;I shall not bid you good-by until I really am
+through with you. Don&#8217;t look so discouraged. Come; possibly I may be a
+better friend to you than you think.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are awfully good,&rdquo; he said again. I don&#8217;t know when I have so
+impressed a man with my extraordinary goodness as I did by listening to
+Charlie while he did all the talking. If I could have held my tongue
+another hour, he would have called me an angel.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, although you may not know it, I am engaged to Louise King. I
+always<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 100]</span> have been very fond of her, and when I found I couldn&#8217;t get
+Sallie, I was sure I cared as much for Louise as I ever could care for
+anybody, and I was perfectly satisfied with her&mdash;thought she would make me
+an awfully good wife, and all that. But while Miss Taliaferro was up here
+visiting Sallie, I was with her a good deal, and the first thing I knew we
+were dead in love with each other. You know we were both in Sallie&#8217;s
+wedding-party, and I tell you, Ruth, to stand up at the altar with a girl
+he is already half in love with, plays the very deuce with a man. Kentucky
+girls are all pretty, I suppose&mdash;everybody says so, and you have to make
+believe you think so whether you do or not; but this one&mdash;you know her?
+Isn&#8217;t she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Well, of course she didn&#8217;t
+know I was engaged, and I kept putting off telling her, until the first
+thing I knew I was letting her see how much I thought of her. I don&#8217;t
+suppose it was at all difficult to see, but girls are keen on such
+subjects, and a man can&#8217;t be in love with one more than a week before she
+knows more about it than he does.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 101]</span> Then, after she told me that she loved
+me, how could I tell her that, in spite of what I had said, I was engaged
+to another girl? Wouldn&#8217;t she have thought I was a rascal? No; I had to
+let her go home thinking that, if we were not already engaged, we should
+be some time, and I went part way with her, and&mdash;it was a mean trick to
+play, but the nonsensical things that unthinking people do precipitate
+affairs which perhaps without their means might never fully develop. Brian
+Beck heard that I was going a few miles with her, and he and Sallie and
+Payson came down to the train to see us off. Just as we pulled out of the
+station, Brian made the most frantic signs for me to open the window, and
+when I did so, he threw a tissue-paper package at me. Frankie and I both
+made an effort to catch it. Of course it burst when we touched it, and a
+good pound of rice was scattered all over us. You never saw such a sight.
+It flew in every direction; her hat and my hair were full of it. Some went
+down my collar. Of course everybody in the car roared and&mdash;well, I&#8217;m not
+done blushing at<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 102]</span> it yet. Frankie took it much better than I, and only
+laughed at it. But I&mdash;I felt more like crying. I saw instantly how it
+complicated things. It was a nail driven into my coffin.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We had no more than settled down from that and were just having a good
+little talk, after the passengers had stopped looking at us, when the
+porter appeared, bringing a basket of white flowers with two turtle-doves
+suspended from the handle, and Brian Beck&#8217;s card on it. I wish you could
+have heard the people laugh. I declare to you, Ruth, when I saw that great
+white thing coming and knew what it meant, it looked as big as a
+billiard-table to me. I was going to pay the fellow to take it out again,
+but no&mdash;Frankie wanted it. She made me put it down on the opposite seat
+and there it stood. Those sickening birds were too much for me, so I
+jerked them off and threw them out of the window, conscious that my face
+was very red and that I was amusing more people than I had bargained for.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the time came for me to get off and take the train back, Frankie
+implored me to<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 103]</span> go on with her, urging how strange it would look to
+people, who all thought we were married, to see me disappear and have her
+go on alone. I railed at the idea, but she was in earnest, and when I told
+her positively that I couldn&#8217;t&mdash;thinking more, I must admit, of the state
+of my affairs than of hers&mdash;she began to cry under her veil. That settled
+it. Of course I couldn&#8217;t stand it to see the girl I loved cry, so I went
+home with her, fell deeper in love every minute I was there, and came away
+feeling like a cur because I had not spoken to her father. Her people met
+me in the cordial, honest manner of those who have faith in mankind, but I
+couldn&#8217;t look them in the face without flinching.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Since I came back, of course, I&#8217;ve been visiting Louise as usual. I told
+her all about the rice and flowers, thinking that if she quarrelled with
+me about the affair she would break off the engagement. But she only
+laughed and said it served me right for flirting with every girl that came
+along, and didn&#8217;t even reproach me. She has absolute faith in me. She
+doesn&#8217;t believe I could sink so low as I have, any<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 104]</span> more than she could.
+She has idealized me until I don&#8217;t dare to breathe for fear of destroying
+the illusion. She thinks that I love her in the way she loves me, but I
+couldn&#8217;t. It isn&#8217;t in me, Ruth. I don&#8217;t even love Frankie that way. To
+tell the truth, Louise is too good for me. She is magnificent, but I am
+rather afraid of her. She has so many ideals and is so intense. Her faith
+in me makes me shiver. I am not a bit comfortable with her. I do not even
+understand how she can love me so much. I am nothing extraordinary, but if
+you knew the way she treats me, you would think I was Achilles or some of
+those Greek fellows. She has refused better and richer men than I. Norris
+Whitehouse has loved her all her life, and you know what a splendid man he
+is, but Louise ridicules the idea of ever caring for anybody but me. She
+is so perfect that there is absolutely no flaw in her for me to recognize
+and feel friendly with. She reads me like a book, but I am less acquainted
+with her than I was before we were engaged. She says such beautiful things
+to me sometimes, things that are<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 105]</span> far beyond my comprehension, and she can
+get so uplifted that I feel as if I never had met her. There&#8217;s no use in
+talking; after a girl falls in love with a man she often ceases to be the
+girl he courted.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I recalled what I had said to Percival&mdash;&ldquo;Often a woman denies herself the
+expression of the best part of her love, for fear that it will be either a
+puzzle or a terror to her lover.&rdquo; Such a saying belonged to Percival. I
+shouldn&#8217;t think of repeating it to Charlie, for he could not comprehend
+it. I should puzzle him as much as Louise did. It made me heartsick. How
+could even Charlie Hardy so persistently misunderstand the grandeur of
+Louise King? Yet how could such a glorious girl imagine herself in love
+with nice, weak, agreeable Charlie Hardy?</p>
+
+<p>Louise is a younger, handsomer, more impetuous, less clever edition of
+Rachel Percival; but she is of that order. She is less concentrated and
+more emotional than Rachel. I did not quite know how a great sorrow would
+affect Louise. Rachel would use it as a stepping-stone towards heaven.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen a young, untried race-horse<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 106]</span> with small, pointed, restless
+ears; with delicate nostrils where the red blood showed; with full, soft
+eyes where fire flashed; with a satin skin so thin and glossy that even
+the lightest hand would cause it to quiver to the touch; where pride and
+fire and royal blood seemed to urge a trial of their powers; and I have
+thought: &ldquo;You are capable of passing anything on the track and coming
+under the wire triumphant and victorious; or you might fulfil your
+prophecy equally well by falling dead in your first heat, with the red
+blood gushing from those thin nostrils. We can be sure of nothing until
+you are tried, but it is a quivering delight to look at you and to share
+your impatience and to wonder what you will do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally I see women who affect me in the same way&mdash;idealists, capable
+of being wounded through their sensitiveness by things which we ordinary
+mortals accept philosophically; capable also of greater heights of
+happiness and lower depths of misery, but of suffering most through being
+misunderstood. To this class Rachel and Louise belong. Rachel, in
+Percival, has<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 107]</span> reached a haven where she rides at anchor, sheltered from
+such storms as had hitherto almost engulfed her, and growing more
+heroically beautiful in character day by day. Poor Louise is still at sea,
+with a great storm brewing. How hard, how terribly hard, to talk to
+Charlie Hardy about her, when, after the solemnity of an engagement tie
+between them, he was capable of misunderstanding, not only her, but the
+whole situation so blindly! But what a calamity it would be if Louise
+should marry him!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go on, Ruth. Say something, do. I imagine all sorts of things while you
+just sit there looking at me so solemnly. I realize that I am in a tight
+place. I did hope that you could see some way out of it for me; but I
+know, by the way you act, that you think I ought to give up Frankie&mdash;dear
+little girl!&mdash;and marry Louise, and by Jove! if you say it&#8217;s the handsome
+thing to do, I&#8217;ll do it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This still more effectually closed my lips. He so evidently thought that
+he was being heroic. He added rather reluctantly, &ldquo;I must say that I
+suppose Frankie Taliaferro<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 108]</span> would get over it much more easily than Louise
+could.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; I said slowly, &ldquo;you don&#8217;t mean to be, but you are too conceited
+to live. I wonder that you haven&#8217;t died of conceit before this.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Charlie&#8217;s blond face flushed and he looked deeply offended.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Conceited!&rdquo; he burst out. &ldquo;Why, Ruth, there isn&#8217;t a fellow going who has
+a worse opinion of himself than I have. I don&#8217;t see what either of those
+girls sees in me to love, I tell you. I am not proud of it. I wish to
+Heaven they didn&#8217;t love me. <em>I</em> haven&#8217;t made them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Haven&#8217;t made them&rsquo;! Yes, you have. You are just the kind of man who
+does. You say pretty things even to old women, and bring them shawls and
+put footstools under their feet with the air of a lover. And if you only
+hand a woman an ice you look unutterable things. You have a dozen girls at
+a time in that indefinite state when three words to any one of them would
+engage you to her, and she would think you had deliberately led up to it;
+whereas all the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 109]</span> past had been idle admiration on your part, and it was a
+rose in her hair or a moment in the conservatory that upset you, and there
+you are. Oh, these girls, these girls, who believe every time a man at a
+ball says he loves them that he means it! Why can&#8217;t you be satisfied to
+have some of them friends, and not all sweethearts?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It can&#8217;t be done. I&#8217;ve tried and I know. Sallie tried it and it married
+her off&mdash;a thing not one of her flirtations could have accomplished. This
+is the way it goes. You arrange with a girl not to have any nonsense, but
+just to be good friends. You take her to the theatre, drive with her,
+dance with her. Soon her chaperon begins to eye you over. Fellows at the
+club drop a remark now and then. You explain that you are only friends,
+and they wink at you and you feel foolish. Next time they see you with
+her, they look knowing, and you see, to your horror, that the girl is
+blushing. Evidently she is under fire too. Still, you keep it up. She
+makes a better comrade than any of the men. You feel that you are out of
+mischief when you are with her. She keeps you alert.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 110]</span> You never are bored,
+but really you are not as fond of her as you were of your college chum
+even. She treats you a trifle, just a trifle, differently from all the
+other men. This goes to your head. You begin to make a little difference
+yourself. You take her hand when you say good-night, just as you would one
+of the men. But it is not the same. The girl has needles or electricity in
+her hand. You can&#8217;t let go. You begin to feel that friendship, too, can be
+dangerous. Next day you send her flowers, with some lines about the
+delights of friendship. She accepts both beautifully, but you have a
+guilty feeling that you did it to remind her. She does not seem to
+understand that there had been any necessity. Still, you feel rather mean,
+and to make up for it you try to atone by your manner. She is looking
+perfectly lovely. She wears white. You particularly like white. She knows
+it. You think perhaps she wore it to please you. <em>How</em> pretty she is! You
+lose your head a little and say something. She looks innocent and
+surprised. She &lsquo;thought we were just friends. Surely,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;you
+have<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 111]</span> said so often enough. Why change? Friends are so much more
+comfortable.&rsquo; She wants to &lsquo;stay a friend.&rsquo; You are miserable at the idea,
+although that morning it was just what you wanted. You were even afraid
+she would think differently. What an ass a man can be! You fling
+discretion to the winds and tell her&mdash;you tell her&mdash;well, you go home
+engaged to her. That&#8217;s how a friendship ends. Bah!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A realistic recital. From hearsay, of course! The next day the man wishes
+he were well out of it, I suppose?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not quite so soon as that, but soon enough.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, I wish you knew, Charlie Hardy, how all this sounds even to such a
+good friend of yours as I am. It is such men as you who lower the standard
+of love and of men in general. Do you suppose a girl who has had an
+encounter with you, and seen how trifling you are, can have her first
+beautiful faith to give to the truly grand hero when he comes? No; it has
+been bruised and beaten down by what you call &lsquo;a little flirtation,&rsquo; and
+possibly her unwillingness<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 112]</span> to trust a second time may force her true
+lover into withdrawing his suit. How dare men and women trifle with the
+Shekinah of their lives? And when it has been dulled by abuse, what a
+pitiful Shekinah it appears to the one who approaches it reverently,
+confidently expecting it to be the uncontaminated holy of holies! It is
+this sort of thing which makes infidels about love.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Charlie began to look sulky, feeling, I suppose, that I was piling the
+sins of the universe on to his already burdened shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I dare say you are right, but what am I to do?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is only one thing for you to do, but I know you won&#8217;t do it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I will. Only try me,&rdquo; he said, brightening up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must go and tell Louise that you are in love with Frankie
+Taliaferro.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell Louise? Why, Ruth, it would kill her. You don&#8217;t know her. She
+wouldn&#8217;t let me off. You don&#8217;t know how a girl in love feels. Ruth, were
+you ever in love?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is not a pertinent question,&rdquo; I said.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 113]</span> &ldquo;It comes quite near being
+the other thing. But let me tell you, Charlie Hardy, I know Louise King,
+and it won&#8217;t kill her. You know &lsquo;men have died and worms have eaten them,
+but not for love.&rsquo; That might be said of women.&rdquo; (I didn&#8217;t know, Tabby,
+whether it might or might not. I couldn&#8217;t afford to let him see my doubts,
+if I had any.) &ldquo;We don&#8217;t die as easily as you men seem to think.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But is this your view of what is right?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I was sure you would
+counsel the other. I&#8217;ve been fortifying myself to give Frankie up and
+marry Louise, and, with all due respect to you, I must say that I think
+you are wrong here. You must remember that my honor is involved.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bother your honor!&rdquo; I cried explosively. Charlie seemed rather pleased
+than otherwise at my inelegance. &ldquo;I am tired to death of hearing men fall
+back on nonsense about their honor. I notice they seldom feel called upon
+to refer to it unless they are involved in something disreputable.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Charlie straightened up at this and settled his coat with an indignant
+jerk.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 114]</span>&ldquo;I hardly think,&rdquo; he began stiffly, &ldquo;that I am involved in anything
+disreputable in being engaged to Miss King.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What are a man&#8217;s debts of honor?&rdquo; I went on with growing excitement.
+&ldquo;Gaming debts and things he would scarcely care to explain to the public
+at large. Your honor is involved in this, is it? And you must save your
+honor at all hazards, no matter who goes to the wall in the process! I
+suppose if you made the rash vow that, if your horse won the race, you
+would cut your mother&#8217;s head off, while you were still in the flush of
+victory, you would seize your bowie-knife and go to work! No? Oh, yes,
+Charlie. Your honor, as you call it, is involved. I insist upon it. You
+must do it. Oh, I am going too far, am I? Not one step further than men go
+in the mire whither their honor leads them. Debts of honor, indeed! Debts
+of dishonor I call them. So do most women.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but, Ruth,&rdquo; interrupted Charlie uneasily, &ldquo;an engagement is
+different. I don&#8217;t dispute what you say in regard to gambling debts&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 115]</span>&ldquo;You can&#8217;t,&rdquo; I murmured rebelliously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&mdash;but a man can&#8217;t, with any decency, ask a girl to release him when he
+has sought her out and asked her to marry him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps not with decency. But it is a place where this precious honor of
+yours might come into play. It would at least be honorable.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There isn&#8217;t a man who would agree with you,&rdquo; he cried.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nor is there a woman who would agree with you,&rdquo; I retorted. But both of
+us stretched things a little at this point.</p>
+
+<p>He thought over the situation for a few minutes, then said,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You understand that, in my opinion, Louise loves me the best.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The best&mdash;yes. For that very reason you must not marry her. O Charlie!
+try to understand,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;She must love the best when she loves at
+all. She has loved the best in you, until she has put it out of your reach
+ever to attain to it. It would not be fair to the girl, it would be
+robbing her, to accept all this beautiful love for you, and give her in
+return&mdash;your love<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 116]</span> for another girl. Do you suppose for an instant that
+you could continue to deceive her after you were married? Supposing she
+found out afterwards, then what? She might die of that. I cannot say. It
+would be enough to kill her. But not if you are honest and manly enough to
+tell her in time to save her self-respect. You are powerless to touch it
+now. You could kill it if you were married.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Honest and manly enough to confess myself a rascal? I don&#8217;t see where it
+would come in,&rdquo; he replied gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is the nearest approach to it which lies in your power.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If the girls&#8217; places were only reversed now! I could tell Frankie that I
+had been false to our engagement and had fallen in love with Louise. She
+would know how it was herself. But Louise couldn&#8217;t comprehend such things.
+I believe she has been as true to me, even in thought, as if she had been
+my wife. How can I tell her?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The more you say, the plainer you make it your duty. I say, how can you
+not tell her?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I might go away for a year and not let<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 117]</span> her know and not write to her.
+Then she would know without my having to tell her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You wouldn&#8217;t stand it if a man called you a coward. Don&#8217;t try my woman&#8217;s
+friendship for you too far. You insult me by offering such a suggestion.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gently, gently, Ruth. I beg your pardon.&rdquo; (Rachel was right in saying he
+would not quarrel. I wished he would. I never wanted to quarrel so much in
+my life.)</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am a coward,&rdquo; he broke down at last. &ldquo;I&#8217;ll spare you the trouble of
+saying so. But oh, Ruth, you don&#8217;t know how I dread a scene! You go and
+tell her. I can&#8217;t. I couldn&#8217;t even write it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How unselfish you are! Spare yourself at all hazards, Charlie, for of
+course it was not your fault that things got into such a state.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Ruth, don&#8217;t!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I won&#8217;t. But do you realize how I should insult her if I went to
+her? It&#8217;s bad enough for you, the man she loves, to tell her. From any one
+else it would be unforgivable. Do as you like. You promised to follow my
+advice. Take it and do<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 118]</span> as you will with it. But I will guarantee the
+result if you will do as I say. Come, Charlie. One hour, and it will all
+be over, and you can marry Frankie.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was like getting him into a dentist&#8217;s chair. I felt a wholesome
+self-contempt as I thus sugar-coated his pill, but he was so abject in his
+misery.</p>
+
+<p>Charlie brightened up perceptibly at the alluring prospect. He shut his
+eyes to the dark path which led to happiness, and was revelling in its
+glory.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ruth, you dear thing! I don&#8217;t see how I ever can thank you enough,&rdquo; he
+said, taking both my hands in his. &ldquo;I ought to have stuck to you, that&#8217;s
+what I ought to have done. You would have kept me straight. Do you know, I
+used to be awfully in love with you. You really were my first love. I was
+about eighteen then. You don&#8217;t look a day older, and you are just as sweet
+as ever.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What did I tell you?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You can&#8217;t help making love to save your
+life. Your gratitude is getting you into deeper water every minute. Go
+home, do. Run<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 119]</span> for your life, or you&#8217;ll be engaged to me too. <em>Then</em>
+who&#8217;ll help you out?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He acted upon my suggestion and went hastily.</p>
+
+<p>Tabby, did you ever? He never was in love with me, never on this earth.
+Whatever possessed him to say such a thing? He loses his head, that&#8217;s what
+he does. I hope he won&#8217;t meet any woman younger than his grandmother
+before he gets home, or he might propose to her.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>My heart stands still when I think of Louise King.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 120]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND</strong></p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;It is not true that love makes all things easy, but it makes us
+choose what is difficult.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<p>Across the street, in plain view from my window, has come to dwell a
+little brown wren of a woman with her five babies. The house, hitherto
+inconspicuous among its finer neighbors, at the advent of the Mayo family
+suddenly bloomed into a home. The lawn blossomed with living flowers and
+the windows framed faces which shamed, in their dimpling loveliness, the
+painted cherubs on the wall.</p>
+
+<p>It was a delight to see Nellie Mayo in the midst of her children. Hers
+were all babies, such dear, amiable, kissable babies, each of whom seemed
+personally anxious to prove to every one how much sweetness one small
+morsel of humanity could hold. But with<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 121]</span> five of them, bless me! the house
+was one glowing radiance of sunshine, in which the little mother lived and
+loved, until they absorbed each other&#8217;s personality, and it was difficult
+to think of one without the others.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes in a street-car or on the elevated train I have seen women who I
+felt convinced had little babies at home. It is because of the peculiar
+look they wear, the rapturous mother-look, which has its home in the eyes
+during the most helpless period of babyhood&mdash;an indescribable look, in
+which dreams and prophecy and heaven are mingled. It is the sweetest look
+which can come to a woman&#8217;s face, saying plainly, &ldquo;Oh, I have such a
+secret in my heart! Would that every one knew its rapture with me!&rdquo; It
+wears off sooner or later, but with Nellie Mayo, whether because there
+always was a baby, or because each was welcomed with such a world of love,
+the look remained until it seemed a part of her face.</p>
+
+<p>Long ago we knew her as an unworldly girl, whose peachblow coloring gave
+to her face its chief beauty, although her plaintive blue eyes and smooth
+brown hair called forth<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 122]</span> a certain protective faith in her simplicity and
+goodness. Sometimes girlhood is a mysterious chaos of traits, out of which
+no one can foretell what sort of cosmos will follow, or whether there will
+be a cosmos at all or only intelligent chaos to the end. But this girl
+seemed to carry her future in her face. She was a little mother to us all.
+It was a tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a
+poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged
+perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her
+unostentatious help. She was everybody&#8217;s understudy. Flossy Carleton, as
+she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie&#8217;s capacity for
+aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie&#8217;s swifter brain
+and willing feet; for to see any one&#8217;s unspoken need was to her like a
+thrilling cry for help, and was the only thing which could completely draw
+her from her shy reserve. The chief reason she was popular was that she
+had a faculty of keeping herself in the shadow. You never knew where she
+was until you wanted her, when she<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 123]</span> would seem to rise out of the earth to
+your side. But, in spite of your intense gratitude at the moment, you
+really found yourself taking her as a matter of course. She was one of
+those who are fully appreciated only when they are dead, and who then call
+forth the bitterest remorse that we have not made them know in life how
+dear they were and how painfully necessary to our happiness.</p>
+
+<p>It is rather a sad commentary upon those same girls, who accepted Nellie&#8217;s
+assistance most readily, to record that, when they were launched into
+society and were deep in the mysteries of full-fledged young-ladyhood,
+little Nellie Maddox was seldom invited to their most fashionable
+gatherings, but came in, at first, before their memory grew too rusty, for
+the simpler luncheons and teas.</p>
+
+<p>This is not a history of intentional or systematic neglect, but a mere
+statement of the way things drifted along. Not one of the girls would
+wilfully have omitted her, if she had been in the habit of being asked;
+but it was easy to let her name slip when all the rest did it, and so
+gradually it came to pass that we seldom saw her. Then she<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 124]</span> married Frank
+Mayo, who would not be offended if he heard a newsboy refer to him as &ldquo;a
+gent,&rdquo; or a maid-servant describe him as &ldquo;a pretty man.&rdquo; Of such a one it
+is scarcely necessary to add that he was selfish, inordinately conceited,
+and, to complete the description, a trifle vulgar. He never suspected his
+wife&#8217;s cleverness nor appreciated her worship. It almost made me doubt her
+cleverness to see how she idolized him, but this instance went far towards
+proving that love, with some women, is entirely an affair of the heart. It
+irritates Rachel to hear any one say so. She says it argues ignorance of a
+nice distinction in terms, and that when the brain is not concerned it
+should be called by a baser name.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt if she could have brought herself to say so if she had been
+looking into Nellie Mayo&#8217;s blue eyes, which looked tired and a little less
+blue than as I remembered them. They had pathetic purple shadows under
+them, which told of sleepless nights with the babies, and there were fine
+lines around her mouth; but her light-brown hair<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 125]</span> was as smooth and her
+dress as plain and neat as ever.</p>
+
+<p>It was like watching a nest of birds. I felt my own love expand to see the
+wealth of affection Nellie had for her precious family. Her unselfish zeal
+never flagged. She flitted from one want to another as naturally as she
+breathed and with as little consciousness of the process. Her household
+machinery ran no more smoothly than many another&#8217;s, but Nellie met and
+surmounted all obstacles with an unruffled brow. Her outward calm was the
+result of some great inward peace. She simply had developed naturally from
+the girl we had known before we grew up and went away to be &ldquo;finished by
+travel.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could go so wrongly, no nerves throb so pitilessly, that they
+prevented her meeting her husband with the smile reserved for him alone.
+None of the babies could call it forth. When he came home tired, Nellie
+fluttered around him making him comfortable, as if life held for her no
+sweeter task.</p>
+
+<p>Being a woman myself, and having no<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 126]</span> husband to wait upon until it became
+natural, I used to feel somewhat vexed that he never served her, instead
+of receiving the best of everything so complacently. He never seemed to
+realize that she might be tired or needed a change of routine. That
+household revolved around him. Of course it was partly Nellie&#8217;s fault that
+he had fallen into the habit of receiving everything and making no return.
+Fallen into it? No. With that kind of a man, an only son, and considered
+by the undiscriminating to be good-looking, his wife had only to take up
+his mother&#8217;s unfinished work of spoiling him. It is true that these
+unselfish women inculcate a system of selfishness in their families which
+often works their ruin. They rob the children of their rightful virtue of
+self-sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>So Nellie idolized her husband. He was her king, and the king could do no
+wrong. She taught the babies a sweet system of idolatry, which so far had
+been harmless. He cared very little for children; so, when yearning to
+express their love for the hero of all their mother&#8217;s stories, with their
+little<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 127]</span> hearts almost bursting with affection, their love was most
+frequently tested by being obliged to keep away from their idol in order
+&ldquo;not to bother him&rdquo; with their kisses. Fortunately these same withheld
+kisses were dear to Nellie, and she never was too busy to accept and
+return them. Thus they never knew how busy she was. She was sure to be
+about some sweet task for others. If she ever rested, it was with the
+cosiest corner occupied by somebody else.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder what will happen when, in heaven, one of these selfless mothers
+is led in triumph to a solid gold throne, all lined with eider-down
+cushions, where she can take the rest she never had on earth. Won&#8217;t she
+stagger back against the glittering walls of the New Jerusalem and say,
+&ldquo;Not for me. Not for me. Surely it must be for my husband?&rdquo; But there,
+where places are appointed, she will not be allowed to give it up&mdash;which
+may make her miserable even in heaven. Ah me, these mothers! It brings
+tears to my eyes to think of their unending love, which wraps around and
+shelters and broods over every one, whose helplessness<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 128]</span> clings to their
+help, whose need depends upon their exhaustless supply. Theirs it is to
+bear the invisible but princely crest, &ldquo;Ich dien.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Nellie had no time for literary classes. Her music, of which we used to
+predict great things, had resolved itself into lullabies and kindergarten
+ditties for the children. She seldom found an opportunity to visit even
+me. So it was I who went there and saw how her life was literally bound by
+the four walls of that little brown house; yet I never felt any
+inclination to pity her, because she was so contented. I knew of others
+who seemed happier&mdash;that is, the word seemed to describe them better&mdash;but
+none of them possessed Nellie Mayo&#8217;s placid content.</p>
+
+<p>Still, I did not like her husband. He was not of Nellie&#8217;s fine fibre. He
+was dull, while she was delightfully clever. His eyes were rather good,
+but he had a way of throwing expressive glances at me, as he talked upon
+trifling subjects, which disgusted me. I reluctantly made up my mind that
+he considered himself a &ldquo;lady-killer,&rdquo; but I felt <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 129]</span>outraged that he should
+waste his ammunition upon me. I tried to be amused by it, when I found
+indignation was useless with him. I used to call him &ldquo;Simon Tappertit&rdquo; to
+myself, until I once forgot and referred to him as &ldquo;Simon&rdquo; before Nellie,
+when I gave up being amused and let it bore me naturally. I always had
+treated him with unusual consideration for Nellie&#8217;s sake, and even had
+tried genuinely to admire him because it gave her such pleasure; but when
+I discovered that the jackanapes took it as an evidence that he was
+progressing in my esteem, I did not know whether to laugh or cry with
+vexation.</p>
+
+<p>All at once, without any explanation or preface, Sallie began calling upon
+Mrs. Mayo and sending her flowers from her conservatories. Often when
+Sallie came to see me her coachman had orders to be at Mrs. Mayo&#8217;s
+disposal, to take the children for a drive, while Sallie and I sat and
+talked about everything except why she had embarked upon this venture. I
+was sure there was something in it which must be kept out of sight,
+because Sallie never would talk about them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 130]</span>I noticed that whenever Frank was away from home&mdash;which grew more and more
+frequent&mdash;an invitation was sure to come for the Mayos from Sallie. But
+Nellie never accepted without him, whether from pride or timidity I could
+not then determine, and all Sallie&#8217;s efforts to persuade her were
+unavailing.</p>
+
+<p>It was such an unusual proceeding in Mrs. Payson Osborne to seek out any
+one that it excited my wonder. But she was not to be balked by anything;
+moreover, I had great faith in her motives, which were sound and good,
+even if her plans of carrying them out inclined to the frivolous.</p>
+
+<p>But all at once her frivolity seemed to reach a climax. She issued
+invitations for a lawn f&ecirc;te, to be followed by a very private, very select
+dinner, after which came the cotillon. She had decorators from New York,
+and otherwise ordered the most extravagant setting for her entertainment.
+This might not seem unusual to every one, but with us, who are accustomed
+to extracting our enjoyment from one party at a time, this seemed rather a
+superb affair. Pet Winterbotham was almost wild with delight.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 131]</span>&ldquo;Only think,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;she has asked Jack and me to lead the cotillon!
+Isn&#8217;t that sweet of her? Oh, I do think she is the dearest thing! Though I
+must say I&#8217;d rather have been asked to the dinner. That&#8217;s going to be
+perfectly elegant. I heard it was to be given for somebody, but I don&#8217;t
+know who it could be. It might be for Frankie Taliaferro. Mrs. Osborne has
+asked her to come up for it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Pet&#8217;s remarks rushed on until I soon found myself carried along the tide
+of her enthusiasm, which she assured me was shared by every girl in town.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not attempt to describe Sallie&#8217;s success. The weather, the people,
+fortune itself, was in her favor, and the whole afternoon was admirable. I
+confess, however, that it was with some slight curiosity that I awaited
+the dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Sallie&#8217;s cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone with an unusual brilliancy
+as she greeted us, but the proverbial feather would have felled any one of
+her guests when Payson offered his arm to Mrs. Frank Mayo, who rose out of
+a shadowy corner in a <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 132]</span>high-throated gown and led us to the dining-room. I
+caught Sallie&#8217;s eye as she laid her hand on Frank Mayo&#8217;s arm, and she gave
+me a comical look, half imploring, half defiant.</p>
+
+<p>I was guilty of wondering if Sallie had been demented when she planned
+that dinner-table, for this is the way we found ourselves:</p>
+
+<p>Next to Frank Mayo came Alice Asbury, encased in freezing dignity. Brian
+Beck, at his worst, supported her on the other hand. After Brian were
+Louise King and Charlie Hardy, both looking to my practised eyes
+exceedingly stiff and uncomfortable. I had no time to wonder if the blow
+had fallen, in casting a glance at the other guests. Nellie Mayo was
+admirably situated between Charlie Hardy and Payson Osborne, both of whom
+were deference itself to her. The difference in her simple attire from the
+full dress all around her in no wise disturbed her unworldly spirit. She
+looked with quiet admiration at the handsome shoulders of Louise and
+Rachel, evidently never dreaming that the babies&#8217;<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 133]</span> mother might be
+expected to follow their example in dress.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;">
+<img src="images/img133.jpg" width="375" height="400" alt="Seating plan." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Grace Beck, sitting by Norris Whitehouse, would have an excellent
+opportunity of cementing or breaking off the prospective match, which as
+yet was unannounced, between her sister and his nephew. Rachel would be
+polite, but not wildly entertaining, to Asbury; but he could count on me
+to be<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 134]</span> decent to him, while I snatched crumbs of intellectual comfort from
+Percival on my other hand. But Sallie had placed the funereal Clinton
+Frost between that rattle-pated Frankie Taliaferro and her lively self,
+probably with the laudable intention of seeing whether his face would be
+permanently disfigured by a smile. Nor was the poor wretch out of Brian
+Beck&#8217;s reach, but was made the objective point of Brian&#8217;s liveliest
+sallies, the hero of his most piquant and impossible stories, which
+convulsed us until I felt sure that the irritated Mr. Frost must cherish a
+secret but lively desire to punch his head. Possibly Brian was the only
+one who thoroughly enjoyed himself at that ill-starred dinner, for he is
+keen on the scent of a precarious situation which is liable to involve
+everybody in total collapse. In this instance he seemed to snuff the
+battle from afar and stirred up all the slumbering elements of discord
+with unctuous satisfaction; and if it had not been for the wicked twinkle
+in his Irish blue eyes, which none of his victims could withstand, it
+might have resulted seriously. He gayly rallied Charlie<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 135]</span> Hardy on his
+flirtations; predicted seeing him yet brought up with a round turn in a
+breach-of-promise case; seemed highly edified by Frankie Taliaferro&#8217;s
+efforts to appear unconcerned at these pleasantries; railed openly at
+Clinton Frost&#8217;s being so unresponsive to the general mirth around him;
+shivered visibly at that gentleman&#8217;s icy retorts; playfully called
+attention to his wife&#8217;s endeavors to frown him into silence; and, in spite
+of Sallie&#8217;s angry glances, really saved her dinner from proving a dismal
+failure. Indeed, the cases were too real, and too much genuine misery was
+concealed behind impassive faces, not to prove a dangerous situation, the
+tension of which was relieved by Brian&#8217;s extravagant nonsense. Percival
+and Norris Whitehouse were sincerely amused by the wit in which Brian
+clothed his droll remarks. But the greatest misfortune of the dinner-giver
+was realized in Frank Mayo, the man who thinks he can tell a good story.
+The Mayos were so new to all of us that this peculiarity was not suspected
+until Brian discovered it and dragged it forth. He persuaded Frank to
+talk, <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 136]</span>listened with absorbing interest to the flattest tales, encouraged
+him if he flagged, and laughed until the tears came if he by chance forgot
+or slurred a point.</p>
+
+<p>However, no one seemed to think that there was anything seriously amiss
+except Sallie, who is a human barometer when she has guests. She knows by
+instinct when they are or are not being entertained. Nor was her tact at
+fault in seating the people, for I was the only one laden with almost
+unbearable knowledge, and I fell asleep that night thinking that possibly
+the situation was not so unusual as it appeared to me. I dare say plenty
+of dinners are given with just as many unsuspected trap-doors to
+sensationalism.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 137]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>THE PATHOS OF FAITH</strong></p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;To him who is shod the whole world is covered with leather.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The next afternoon I was resting and thinking over the brilliancy of the
+Payson Osborne entertainment, when Sallie came in, dressed from head to
+foot in black. There was not a suspicion of white at wrist or throat. I
+was too startled to ask a question until her burst of laughter relieved
+me.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You poor thing!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;did I frighten you? But I <em>am</em> in mourning;
+yes, truly, for my dinner-party. Ruth, Ruth, what was the matter with it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, nothing. It was exquisitely served, and oh, Sallie, your lawn f&ecirc;te
+and the cotillon were beautiful. They were perfect. Truly, you do give the
+most successful entertainments in town.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 138]</span>&ldquo;Certainly&mdash;why shouldn&#8217;t I,&rdquo; said Sallie sharply, &ldquo;when I have never done
+anything, <em>anything</em> all my life but go to parties and study how to give
+them? Oh, Ruth, dear, I do get so tired of it all. But,&rdquo; taking on a
+brisker tone, &ldquo;all the more reason why I should never give such a sad
+affair as that dinner. That dinner, Ruth, was what Brian Beck calls a
+howling failure. Payson never criticises anything that I do, but even he
+came to me quite gingerly this morning, after I had read what the papers
+had to say about it, and said, &lsquo;My dear child, what was the matter with
+your tea-party?&rsquo; Now, let us admit the success of the other two, and weep
+a little in a friendly way over the &lsquo;tea-party.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I had a lovely time&mdash;&rdquo; I began, but Sallie interrupted me.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hypocrite!&rdquo; she cried vehemently. &ldquo;You know you didn&#8217;t. Your eyes were as
+big as turkey platters with apprehension.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear Sallie,&rdquo; I expostulated.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&#8217;t you dare put on airs with me, then,&rdquo; she said mutinously. &ldquo;Now,
+what ailed them all? It couldn&#8217;t have been the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 139]</span> advent of the Mayos. I&#8217;ve
+launched more ticklish craft than they. Nor could it have been that
+abominable Brian Beck, who would spoil Paradise and be the utter ruin of a
+respectable funeral. Every one seemed to conspire to make my dinner a
+failure.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Sallie, I think Percival especially exerted himself. He was in his
+most exquisite mood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Percival, of course. He must have suspected that something was going
+wrong. Did you ever notice, when he talks, how Rachel turns her head away?
+But you can see the color creep up into her face. She is too proud and shy
+to let people see how much she cares for him. But when <em>she</em> speaks
+Percival looks at her with all his eyes, and positively leans forward so
+that he shall not miss a word. I love to watch those two. Sometimes when I
+have been with them I feel as if I had been to church.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then, too, Payson&#8217;s manner to Nellie Mayo was the most chivalric thing I
+ever saw. He treated her as if the best in the land were not too good for
+her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 140]</span>&ldquo;Nor is it,&rdquo; said Sallie warmly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m glad you think so. What a sweet, unworldly spirit she has! Almost any
+woman would have been distressed because of her gown; but she was so
+superior to her dress, with that uplifted face of hers, that I felt
+ashamed to think of it myself. You gave her a rare pleasure last night,
+for she never meets clever men and women. The Percivals and Mr. Whitehouse
+delighted her, and you saw how well she sustained her part of the
+conversation. You see she thinks, if she doesn&#8217;t have time to study. She
+was particularly fortunate in having Payson to take her out, for he has a
+faculty of putting people at their ease. Do you know, Sallie, Payson
+Osborne has come out wonderfully since you married him. He is more
+thoughtful, more considerate, and his manners always have been <em>so</em> good.
+I declare, last night I caught him looking at you in a way which made me
+quite fond of him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m fond of him myself,&rdquo; said Sallie candidly. &ldquo;He undoubtedly is a dear
+old thing, and he is tremendously good to me. By the way, did you notice
+how red Frankie<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 141]</span> Taliaferro&#8217;s eyes were last night? She had the toothache,
+poor girl. It came on quite suddenly just before dinner, and it alarmed me
+for fear she couldn&#8217;t appear. Just before dinner I was naming over the way
+the people were to go in, and I said that I had to put engaged people
+together and separate husbands and wives, after the manner of real life,
+and Payson asked if I was sure Louise King and Charlie Hardy were engaged,
+and I said yes, although it never had been announced, and just then
+Frankie burst into tears. It was a suspicious time for crying, especially
+as that egregious flirt had paid her a great deal of attention; but
+Frankie would tell <em>me</em>, I am sure, and then she really had been to the
+dentist&#8217;s that morning. So I gave her something for it which she said
+cured it. I was so vexed at her for making her eyes red, for her blue
+dress brought it out. If she had been crying over the other, she might
+have spared her tears, for I don&#8217;t believe Charlie and Louise are engaged.
+I think they have quarrelled, for when Charlie offered his arm to Louise,
+she looked up with that way<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 142]</span> she has of throwing her head back, and I
+declare to you, Ruth, I saw, I positively saw, forked lightnings shoot
+from her eyes. They blazed so I was afraid they would set his tie on fire.
+As for Charlie, he turned first green, then magenta, then a rich and
+lively purple. I give you my word they did not speak to each other during
+that dinner, nor would Louise stay to the cotillon. Charlie danced it with
+Frankie. Nice state of affairs, isn&#8217;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself grow weak. But Sallie proceeded gayly: &ldquo;Then you know how
+hard I have tried to propitiate those miserable Asburys. I declare, I
+think Alice might meet me half way. Perhaps she didn&#8217;t like being seated
+between Frank Mayo and Brian Beck, but both she and that awful Frost man
+sat as stiff and unsmiling as if they had swallowed curtain-poles by the
+dozen.&rdquo; Sallie does not mind an extra word or two to strengthen a simile.
+I tried to imagine Alice and Mr. Frost gulping down the articles Sallie
+mentioned, but mine was no match for Sallie&#8217;s nimble fancy and I gave it
+up. &ldquo;I do hope that Pet <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 143]</span>Winterbotham will not marry that man. I should as
+soon see her led to the altar by a satin-lined casket. I had to invite him
+when I found that Frankie could come. Wasn&#8217;t Brian Beck dreadful, and
+didn&#8217;t you think you would go to sleep under Frank Mayo&#8217;s stories? And
+didn&#8217;t Grace Beck&#8217;s airs with Mr. Whitehouse amuse you? Oh, she will hold
+that head of hers so high if Pet marries Jack. How bored Asbury looked,
+didn&#8217;t he? So selfish of him not to pretend to be pleased. Even Rachel
+vexed me by not being nicer to Asbury. I declare, Ruth, I was so irritated
+at the queer way every one acted, I felt as if it would be a relief to
+make faces at them, instead of beaming on them the hospitable beam of a
+hostess. I wonder how they would have liked it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They might have considered it rather unconventional perhaps.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Sallie smiled absent-mindedly, pressed her hand to her flushed cheek,
+looked over towards the Mayo house, and then, meeting my inquiring glance,
+dropped her eyes in confusion.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said tentatively.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 144]</span>Sallie leaned back in her chair, put her hands behind her head, and closed
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; she said dreamily, &ldquo;why I ever attempt to do things. Why can&#8217;t
+people let me alone, and why don&#8217;t I let them alone? Most of all, why do I
+ever try to keep a secret?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I knew then that she had been rattling on because her mind was full of
+something else. I don&#8217;t believe she knew half that she had said. Presently
+to my surprise I saw a tear steal down her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O Sallie!&rdquo; I exclaimed, now really worried, &ldquo;what is it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;ll tell you, Ruth, for you are the only one who seems really to know
+and love that dear little Nellie Mayo and those blessed babies. Ruth,
+there is a Damocles sword hanging over that nest of birds, and it is
+liable to fall at any moment. Oh, it has weighed on my heart like lead
+ever since I discovered the secret. I know you don&#8217;t like Frank Mayo, but
+you will despise him when I tell you the mischief he is up to, and that
+poor little wife of his trusting him as if he were an archangel. Oh, he
+is<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 145]</span> common, Ruth, and horrid, and if it is ever found out it will kill
+Nellie. But he is carrying on dreadfully with a soubrette in New York. He
+is wasting his money on her&mdash;and you know he has none to spare&mdash;and seems
+to be infatuated with her; while she, of course, is only using him to
+advertise herself. In fact, that is how I found it out. Payson is in a
+syndicate which is trying to buy one of those up-town theatres in New York
+and turn it into something else; I forget just what they want to do with
+it, but any way, he came in contact with the manager of the theatre where
+this woman was playing. He gave them a dinner and afterwards they occupied
+his box, and while this woman was on the stage her manager told how some
+man was causing nightly sensations by the flowers he sent her, and he said
+that he&mdash;her manager&mdash;thought he would have it written up for the papers
+to advertise her before she started out on her tour. He said the man was
+making a fool of himself, but the actress didn&#8217;t care, and when he pointed
+out the fellow to them, Payson saw to his horror that it was Frank Mayo.
+He didn&#8217;t<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 146]</span> say a word before the other gentlemen, but the next day he went
+to the manager and begged him to advertise the woman in some other way. He
+told him who Frank was and all about his poor little wife and the
+children, and the manager, who seems to be a good hearted man, said it was
+a shame and promised not to allow it. He even went so far as to offer to
+speak to the actress herself and request her to refuse to be interviewed
+on the subject. So Payson came home quite relieved. But the next time he
+saw the manager Payson asked him how things were going, and he said worse
+than ever as far as Frank himself was concerned, and he added that when he
+mentioned the subject to the actress she tossed her head and said Mayo
+must take care of himself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then I thought I would do what I could to introduce him into society
+here, for you know he is ambitious in that line, and perhaps I might get
+him away from the creature. So I gave that whole thing yesterday for the
+Mayo family, with what result you know, except that I haven&#8217;t told you
+that the presumptuous dolt made love mawkishly<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 147]</span> to me all the evening.
+Yes, actually! Did you ever hear of such impertinence? Oh, the man is
+simply insufferable, Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, what I am constantly afraid of is that it will get into the papers
+after all. I read them, I fairly study them, so that it shall not escape
+me; but, if it does come out, what shall we do for Nellie? It will break
+her heart.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Sallie with gnawing conscience that I had ever called her lawn
+f&ecirc;te the climax of frivolity. The dear little soul! who would have
+suspected that she had such a worthy motive for her ball? But, do you
+know, sometimes in fashionable life we catch a glimpse of the
+simple-minded, homely kindliness which we are taught to believe exists
+only among horny-handed farmers, rough miners, and hardy mountaineers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sallie, dear child,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I beg your pardon for not knowing how noble
+you are.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Noble? I? Sallie Cox? Now, nobody except Payson ever hinted at such a
+thing, and I hushed him up instantly. No, Ruth, it was nothing. I dare say
+Rachel or you would have thought of some grand project<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 148]</span> which would have
+been effectual, but <em>I</em> couldn&#8217;t think of anything to do but to tickle his
+vanity by making him the guest of honor at the best affair of the season.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed, I think neither Rachel nor I could have thought of anything so
+sure to captivate a shallow mortal like Frank Mayo.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Set a thief to catch a thief,&rdquo; said Sallie merrily. &ldquo;I&#8217;m shallow myself,
+<em>I</em> knew how it would feel to have such a fine thing given for me. My
+dear, if the ball were only fine enough it would cure a broken heart.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not if the heart were really broken, Sallie.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you must admit that it would help <em>some</em>,&rdquo; she said whimsically.</p>
+
+<p>And so she went away and left the burden upon me. Then I, too, fell to
+devouring the papers, as I knew Sallie was doing with me. I went more than
+ever to the little brown house which lay in such peril, and I never saw
+Nellie with a paper in her hand that I did not shudder.</p>
+
+<p>At last the thing we so dreaded came to pass. In the evening paper there
+was quite a sensational account of it. Thank<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 149]</span> Heaven, no name was given;
+but alas, the description of him, of his wife and five little children,
+was unmistakable. I felt as though I had sat still and watched a cat kill
+a bird. It was raining, not hard, but drearily, and the dead leaves
+fluttered against the windows as the chill wind blew them from where they
+clung. I was lonesome, and the autumn evening intensified my feelings. I
+glanced over to where a red glow came from Nellie&#8217;s windows. I fancied her
+sitting there with the paper in her hand, as she always did in the one
+spare moment of her busy day, with her heart crushed by the news. She
+would be alone, too, for Frank was out of town. Poor child! Poor child! I
+started up and decided to go and see her. If she didn&#8217;t want me I could
+come back, but what if she did want me and I was not there?</p>
+
+<p>I found her sitting, as I had expected, alone. The paper, with the fatal
+page uppermost, lay in her lap, as if she had read it and laid it down.
+There was only the firelight in the room.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come in, dear,&rdquo; she said gladly. &ldquo;I was just thinking of you and
+wondering if<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 150]</span> such weather did not make you blue. Sit down here by the
+fire. It was sweet of you to come in the rain.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She searched my distressed face anxiously as she spoke. I made no reply.
+My heart was too full at being comforted when I had come to comfort. As I
+sat on a low stool at her side she seemed to divine my mood, for she drew
+my head against her knee with a mother touch, and threaded my hair with a
+mother hand, and pressed down my eyelids as I have seen her do when she
+puts her baby to sleep. And though she must have felt the tears come, she
+did not appear to know.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear Ruth,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I have been sitting here thinking about you, and
+wondering if you were satisfied, such a loving heart as you have, to face
+the rest of your life without the love you deserve. You won&#8217;t be vexed
+with me for speaking of it to you, for you know I am so old-fashioned that
+I think love is the only thing in this world worth having. It is all that
+I live for. Of course my children love me, but, until they grow older,
+theirs is only an <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 151]</span>instinctive love. It isn&#8217;t like the love of a husband,
+which singles you out of all the other countless women in the world to be
+his and only his forever. There is power enough in that thought to nerve
+the weakest woman to do a giant&#8217;s task. The mere fact that you are all in
+all, the <em>only</em> woman, to the man you so dearly love, the one person who
+can make his world; when you think that your being away from one meal or
+out of the house when he comes in will make him miss you till his heart
+aches&mdash;this will keep down a moan of pain when it is almost beyond
+bearing, for fear it might cause him to suffer with you; it will nerve you
+to stand up and smile into his eyes when you are ready to drop with
+exhaustion. Love, such as a husband&#8217;s love for his wife, is the most
+precious, the most supporting thing a woman can have. You never hear me
+talk much about my husband, but he is all this and more to me. I cannot
+begin to tell you about it. I read about unhappy marriages&mdash;why, I read a
+dreadful thing to-night in the paper, which set me to thinking how safe
+and happy I am, and how thankful I ought<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 152]</span> to be that I can trust my
+husband so. It was about a man who was unfaithful to his wife, and they
+had five children just as we have. I know such things do occur, but how or
+why is a mystery to me. I hope I am not too hard when I say that in such a
+case it must be the wife&#8217;s fault. Surely if she had been a good wife, an
+unselfish and loving wife, he could not have been enticed away. Poor
+thing! I wonder how she felt when she heard it. Probably she wouldn&#8217;t
+believe it. Probably she had too much faith in him. You shake your head.
+Why, Ruth, you dear thing, you don&#8217;t know anything about it. A wife
+<em>couldn&#8217;t</em> believe such a thing. Why, I wouldn&#8217;t believe it if told by an
+angel from heaven. But then my husband is so dear to me. I do sometimes
+wonder if all women care as much for their husbands as I do for mine. Do
+you know, dear, I think about you so much. I know that there have been
+several hearts in which you have reigned, and yet you have not cared. But
+the true love, the right lover, has not come, or you could not have passed
+him by. He is waiting for you; somewhere, somehow,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 153]</span> he will come to you, I
+am sure, and you will know then that you have belonged to each other all
+this time; that this love has been coming down the ages from eternity for
+just you two. You will not refuse it then. Why, I could never have refused
+to marry Frank when I found that I was as much to him as he was to me! He
+is so handsome, so good. I shall never cease to thank God that He made him
+turn aside into the quiet places to find me. But, in spite of all this,
+you know I don&#8217;t think he is perfect. He doesn&#8217;t care for books as much as
+I wish he did. He has no ear for music, and he cannot tell a story
+straight to save his life, the dear boy! Love does not blind my eyes, but
+this is what it does do. It makes me overlook in him what would annoy me
+in others. When, at that beautiful dinner of Mrs. Osborne&#8217;s, Frank told
+those stories of his that I&#8217;ve heard for years, I don&#8217;t think any one
+cared to hear them except Mr. Beck and me. I knew they were not well told,
+but it was my husband who was telling them, and I could listen to his
+voice, even if I couldn&#8217;t sit next him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 154]</span>&ldquo;How the wind blows. Don&#8217;t you think it has a lonesome sound to-night?
+There isn&#8217;t a glimmer of light from any of your windows yet, and see what
+a lovely glow this fire casts all through the room. It makes the cold
+walls look warm, and if it makes shadows, it chases them away when it
+blazes its brightest. It is your fault that there is no light in your
+windows, and your fault that you have closed your heart against love. You
+could have the glow that lights my house and my heart if you only would.
+You know, dear, I am not talking to you as a neighbor now or even as a
+friend, but as a woman talks to a woman out of her inmost heart. It is
+only because I love you so and because I have seen you with my babies that
+I know what a home-maker you are. You seem so sad sometimes, and I know
+your heart is wistful if your eyes are not. How can you have the courage
+to shut out love? How can you see the happiness of all your friends and
+not want a share of it yourself? Why do you cry so, my dear? Is there some
+one you love? Has any trouble come between<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 155]</span> you? No? No? Well, there,
+there! It was selfish of me to show you the way I look at things and to
+try to make you dissatisfied. Never mind. You are stronger than I. I could
+not live without love; I should die. But if you can, it may be that you
+are fulfilling your destiny more nobly than many another who has more of
+what I should choose.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, must you go? Forgive me if I have said what I should not. Good-night,
+and God bless you, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 156]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE</strong></p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;The tallest trees are most in the power of the wind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<p>Last night at the theatre there were theatricals all over the house. My
+eyes followed the play on the stage, but my mind was filled with the farce
+in the next box and with the tragedy in the one opposite.</p>
+
+<p>I was with the Ford-Burkes, and, hearing familiar voices, I pulled aside
+the curtain, and in the next box were the Payson Osbornes, Pet
+Winterbotham, and Jack Whitehouse. Pet thrust her hand over the railing
+and whispered,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m engaged. Put your hand here and feel the size of my ring. You can get
+an idea of it through my glove. I&#8217;d take it off and show it to you, only I
+think it would look rather pronounced, don&#8217;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 157]</span>&ldquo;Rather,&rdquo; I assented faintly.</p>
+
+<p>I glanced beyond her into the fresh blue eyes of young Jack Whitehouse,
+and I wondered if the alert, manly young fellow, with his untried but
+inherited capabilities, knew that he had been accepted as a husband
+because his hair curled and he looked &ldquo;chappie.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you have heard the news, haven&#8217;t you?&rdquo; she went on.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing in particular. What news?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look across the house and you will see.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Just entering their box opposite were Louise King and Norris Whitehouse,
+Jack&#8217;s uncle.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; I asked, with a wrench at Pet&#8217;s little hand which made
+her wince.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&#8217;s an engagement. Uncle and nephew engaged the same season. Isn&#8217;t it
+rich? Think of Louise King being my aunt. She is only twenty-three.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then they saw us and bowed. I felt faint as my mind adjusted itself to
+this new arrangement. I levelled my glass at them.</p>
+
+<p>Louise, magnificently tall and handsome,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 158]</span> looked quite self-contained. She
+is one of the best-bred girls I know, but it required a stronger
+imagination than mine to fathom what mysterious change had transformed her
+from the impulsive, loving creature of Charlie Hardy&#8217;s story to this
+serene-eyed woman, who had deliberately elected to marry at the funeral of
+her own heart.</p>
+
+<p>As I looked across at her during that long evening, I felt that it was
+impertinent to probe her heart with my wonderings and surmises. I knew
+instinctively just how carefully she was hiding her hurt from all human
+eyes. I knew how her fierce pride was bearing up under the cruelty of it.
+I felt how she had rushed from the humiliation one man had brought her to
+the waiting love of the one who should have been her first choice by the
+divine right of natural selection. This strong man had loved her for
+years, but he would never allow her to imperil either his dignity or her
+own. He was just the man her impulsive, high-strung nature could accept as
+a refuge, beat against and buffet if need be, then learn to appreciate and
+cling to.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 159]</span>I had an impression that he was not totally ignorant of the state of
+affairs. He was older and wiser than she, and capable of the bravery of
+this venture. No, he was not being deceived. I was sure of it. Louise was
+too high minded to attempt it. She would be scornfully honest with him.
+Her scorn would be for herself, not for him, and he had accepted her
+joyfully on these terms. His daring was tempered with prudence, and his
+clear vision doubtless forecast the end. His insight must have shown him
+that, with a girl like Louise, the rebound from the self-disdain to which
+Charlie Hardy&#8217;s confession must have reduced her would be as intense as
+her humiliation had been, and that her passionate gratitude to the man who
+restored her self-respect would be boundless. Not every man&mdash;not even
+every man who loved her&mdash;could do this. He must possess strong nerves who
+descends into a volcano. He must have a more unbending will who tames any
+wild thing; but what an intoxicating thrill of pride must come to him who,
+having confidence in his own powers, makes the attempt and succeeds.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 160]</span>Perhaps if Louise had been strong enough to fight this cruel battle out
+with herself as Rachel would have done, and win as Rachel would have won,
+she might have been able to choose differently. She might then, strong in
+her own strength, marry a man of lesser personality, a younger man, and
+they two could have adjusted their lives to each other gradually. Now it
+must be Louise who would be adjusted, and Norris Whitehouse was just the
+man to know the curious fact that the more fiery and impetuous a woman is,
+the more easily, if she is in love, will she mould herself to
+circumstances. The more untamed and unbending she seems, the more helpless
+will she be under the strong excitement of love or grief.</p>
+
+<p>A strong-minded woman is easier to persuade than a weak one. The grander
+the nature the greater its pliability towards truth. The longer I sat and
+gazed into the opposite box the clearer it grew in my mind that the
+suddenness of this venture did not imply rashness, but serene-eyed faith
+only, and such faith would captivate Louise King more than would love. The
+only impossible<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 161]</span> thing about it to a sceptical Old Maid was that it was
+the man who was proving himself such a hero, and who was upsetting my
+favorite theory that men never understand emotional women. Still, it was
+not difficult to except as unusual a man like Norris Whitehouse, and yet
+have my theory hold good. In imagination I leaped forward to the peaceful
+outcome of this turbulent beginning, and overlooked the way which led to
+it. I found myself hoping, with painful intensity, that this venture in
+which Norris Whitehouse and I had embarked would prove successful. I had
+known and loved Louise King all her life. I had loved her dear mother
+before her, and the beautiful daughterhood of this girl had always touched
+me as the highest and sweetest type I ever had known. I did not want to be
+the one to bring her face to face with her first great sorrow, although I
+dared not interfere to less purpose. For</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&#8217;Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And matter enough to save one&#8217;s own.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">Yet think of my friend and the burning coals<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We played with for bits of stone.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 162]</span>They could not know that I had had anything to do with it; yet, if ill
+came of it, I should blame myself all the rest of my life.</p>
+
+<p>Not long afterwards they were married very quietly and went away for a few
+weeks. When they returned I sought Louise with eagerness, and found that
+my fears were not groundless. I tried to think what to do. If it would
+have eased matters, I would willingly have gone to her and confessed that
+I instigated Charlie Hardy&#8217;s confession. But I felt that the root of the
+matter lay deeper than that, so I said nothing that could be construed
+into an unwelcome knowledge of her affairs.</p>
+
+<p>In the short time which elapsed between their return and the date set for
+their departure for Europe, where they were to stay a year, I saw Louise
+continually. She sought me as if she liked to be with me, although her
+eyes never lost the anxious, hunted expression which you sometimes see in
+the eyes of some trapped wild creature.</p>
+
+<p>It was a raw morning, with a chill wind blowing, when their steamer was to
+sail.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 163]</span> Mr. Whitehouse, thinking I might have some last private word to say
+to Louise, skilfully detached everybody else and strolled with them beyond
+earshot, but where his eyes could continually rest upon his wife&#8217;s face.</p>
+
+<p>As Louise and I walked up and down I took in mine the small hand which
+emerged from the great fur cuff of her boat cloak, and gradually its
+rigidity relaxed under my friendly pressure. I remembered, as I
+occasionally tightened my grasp upon it, that my dear little baby sister
+Lois, who was taken away from us before she outgrew her babyhood, used to
+squeeze my hand in this fashion, and when I asked her what it meant, she
+invariably said, &ldquo;It means dat it loves you.&rdquo; I wondered if the same
+inarticulate language could be conveyed to poor, suffering Louise.
+Suddenly she turned to me and said,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You have thrown something gentle, a softness around me this morning. I
+can feel it. What is it, Ruth?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&#8217;t know, dear, unless it is my love for you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 164]</span>&ldquo;It is something more. Your eyes look into mine as if you knew all about
+it and wished to comfort me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As I made no answer, she turned and looked down at me from her superb
+height.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she said quite gently; &ldquo;I shall not be angry. Tell me, <em>do</em> you
+know?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Louise, I know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated a moment as if she really had not believed it. Then she said
+slowly,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If any other person on earth except you had told me that, I should die. I
+could not live in the knowledge. But you&mdash;well, your pity is not an insult
+somehow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because it is not pity, Louise,&rdquo; I said steadily. &ldquo;There is a difference
+between pity and sympathy. One is thrown at you&mdash;the other walks with
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She only pressed my hand gratefully. Suddenly she turned and said
+impulsively,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you must know how utterly wretched I am.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Glancing over her shoulder I could see the eyes of her husband fastened
+upon her with an expression which stirred me to put forth my best
+efforts.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 165]</span>Then it came over me how pent-up all this intensity of feeling must be. I
+realized how impossible it would seem to her to speak of it. Taking my
+life in my hand&mdash;for I was mortally afraid&mdash;I rushed in, after the manner
+of my kind, where angels fear to tread.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you love him then so much?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The pupils of her eyes enlarged until they were all black with excitement.
+She caught both my hands in hers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Only God Himself knows how I loved him,&rdquo; she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>I knew then that all Charlie had said was true, and, weak coward that I
+was, if I could have undone the past, I would have given him back to her.
+I was borne away by a glimpse of such love. O Charlie Hardy! And you cast
+this from you for a pair of blue eyes!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How came you to love such a weak man?&rdquo; I asked tremblingly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is what I want to know. How could I? How can girls of my sort love
+so hopelessly beneath us? I&#8217;ve thought and wondered over that question
+until my brain<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 166]</span> has almost turned, and the only consolation I find is that
+I am not the only one. Other women, cleverer than I, have loved the most
+contemptible of men and have been deceived just as I was. Oh, if he or I
+had only died before I discovered the truth! If I could have mourned him
+honorably and felt that my grief was dignified! But I won&#8217;t allow myself
+to grieve over him. I tell myself that I am well out of it and that I
+ought to be glad. But instead of gladness there is a dull, miserable ache
+in my heart, which I feel even in my sleep. Not for him; I don&#8217;t mourn for
+him, but for myself&mdash;for my fallen idols and my shattered ideals. What
+will such men have to answer for? I doubt if I ever can believe in
+anything human again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Anything <em>human</em>,&rdquo; I repeated gladly.</p>
+
+<p>Louise looked down.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He was not omnipotent,&rdquo; she said huskily. &ldquo;He ruled my heart only, not my
+soul.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you have tried to love your husband?&rdquo; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tried? Oh, Ruth, I have tried so<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 167]</span> hard! He is so good to me. He knows
+everything. Of course I told him. That was why we were married so
+suddenly. He wished it and urged such excellent reasons, and I had so much
+respect for him and his wisdom in what is best, that I married him. I
+thought I could love him. I always thought that if I didn&#8217;t love&mdash;the
+other one&mdash;I should love Norris; but I can&#8217;t. I believe my power of love
+is gone forever. I feel sometimes as if the best part of me had been
+killed&mdash;not died of its own accord, but as if it had been murdered.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Why don&#8217;t you talk this over with your husband?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Ruth, how could I?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, may I talk to you? Will it hurt you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing that you would say can hurt me, dear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then let me say just this. You have been trying to do in weeks what
+nature would take years to do. In real life you cannot lose your love and
+heal your worse than widowed heart and love anew as you would in private
+theatricals. You have <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 168]</span>outraged your own delicate sensibilities, but not
+with your husband&#8217;s consent. He does not want you to try to love him. No
+good man does. He wants you to love him because you can&#8217;t help
+yourself&mdash;because it seems to your heart to be the only natural thing to
+do. &lsquo;When the song&#8217;s gone out of your life, you can&#8217;t start another while
+it&#8217;s a-ringing in your ears. It&#8217;s best to have a bit o&#8217; silence, and out
+of that maybe a psalm&#8217;ll come by and by.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Ruth, dear Ruth, say that again,&rdquo; she cried, turning towards me with
+tears in her lovely eyes. I repeated it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How restful to dare to take &lsquo;a bit o&#8217; silence&rsquo;!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No one can prevent you doing so but yourself. Mr. Whitehouse married you
+to give you just that, confident that he loved you so much that the psalm
+would come by and by.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I believe he did,&rdquo; said Louise gently, with color rising in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Another thing. Don&#8217;t try not to grieve. Don&#8217;t repress yourself. It is
+right that you should mourn over your lost ideals. <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 169]</span>Nothing on earth
+brings more poignant grief than that. You will never get them back. Do not
+expect what is impossible. They were false ideals, none the less beautiful
+and dear to you for being that, but truly they were distorted. You will
+see this some time. You have begun to see it now. You realize that this
+man was in no way what you thought him. You had idealized him, had almost
+crowned him. Now you can&#8217;t help trying to invest Mr. Whitehouse with the
+same unnamable, invisible qualities. But no man has them. Your husband is
+a thousand times more worthy than the other, yet even he does not deserve
+worship. Let the man do the crowning if you can, although a woman of your
+temperament would find even that difficult&mdash;that which the most inane of
+women could accept with calmness and a smile. You have the magnificent
+humility of the truly great. Still it is not appreciated in this world.
+Try resting for a while and let your husband love you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I knew that I was saying, though perhaps in a different way, things which
+Norris Whitehouse had urged upon her. Not<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 170]</span> that she said so. She would
+have regarded that as sacrilege. But it was a look, a little trembling
+smile, which betrayed the ingenuous young creature to me. I felt that I
+was in the presence of a nature very fair and exquisitely pure. It was a
+sacred feeling. I almost felt as if I ought not to read the signs in her
+face, because she had no idea that they were there.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have such horrible doubts,&rdquo; she said suddenly with suppressed
+bitterness. &ldquo;I do not belittle my love. I know that I loved him with all
+my heart and soul, and that I gave him more than most women would have
+done, because love means infinitely more to me than it does to them. I
+knew all the time that I loved him more than he loved me, but I did not
+care, for I believed, blind as I was, that we loved each other all we were
+capable of doing, and if I had more love to give it was only because I was
+richer than he, and I meant to make him the greater by my treasure. Now I
+feel that both I and my love have been wasted. Oh, it was a cruel thing,
+Ruth. I feel so poor, so poor.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 171]</span>&ldquo;Louise, you think, but you do not think rightly. <em>Are</em> you poorer for
+having loved him? What is his unworth compared with your worth? Isn&#8217;t your
+love sweeter and truer for having grown and expanded? No love was ever
+wasted. It enriches the giver involuntarily. You are a sweeter, better
+woman than before you loved, unless you made the mistake of small natures
+and let it embitter you. You have no right to feel that it has been
+wasted.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think so?&rdquo; she said doubtfully. &ldquo;That is an uplifting thought.&rdquo;
+Then she added in a low voice, &ldquo;There is one thing more. It is very
+unworthy, I am afraid, but it is a canker that is eating my heart out. And
+that is the mortification of it. Can you picture the thing to yourself?
+Can you form any idea of how I felt? It grows worse the more I think of
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know, I know. But, dear child, there is where I am powerless to help
+you. If I were in your place I think I should feel just as you do. It was
+a cruel thing. I wonder that you bore it as well as you did.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 172]</span>&ldquo;What! Should <em>you</em> feel that way? Then you do not blame me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why mention blame in connection with yourself? You are singularly free
+from it. But did you ever consider what an honor the love of such a man as
+your husband is? Do you know how he is admired by great men? Do you
+realize how he must love you, and what magnificent faith he must have to
+wish to marry a young girl like you who admits that she does not love him?
+If you never do anything else in this world except to deserve the faith he
+has in you, you will live a worthy life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>We were standing still now, and Louise was looking at her husband at a
+distance with a look in her eyes which was good to see.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You never can love him as you loved the other one. A first love never
+comes again. Would you want it to? When you love your husband, as he and I
+both know that you will do some time&mdash;perhaps not soon, but he is very
+patient&mdash;still, I say, when you love him you will love him in a gentler,
+truer way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 173]</span>&ldquo;Can you tell me why such a bitter experience should have been sent to me
+so early in life?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To save you pain later and to make of you what you were planned to be.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tears rolled down her cheeks and she bent to kiss me, for the last mail
+had been put aboard and we had only a moment more.</p>
+
+<p>What she whispered in my ear I shall never tell to any one, but it will
+sweeten my whole life.</p>
+
+<p>As we went towards Mr. Whitehouse Louise involuntarily quickened her pace
+a little and held out her hand to him with a smile. It was good to see his
+face change color and to view the quiet delight with which he received
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Then there were good-byes and hurried steps and a great deal of shouting
+and hauling of ropes, and there were waving of hands and a tossing of
+roses from the decks above and a few furtive tears and many heart-aches,
+and then&mdash;the great steamer had sailed.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 174]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>IN WHICH I WILLINGLY TURN MY FACE WESTWARD</strong></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Grow old along with me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">The best is yet to be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0a">The last of life, for which the first was made.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">Our times are in His hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">Who saith, &lsquo;A whole I planned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0a">Youth shows but half; trust God, see all, nor be afraid.&rsquo;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>The years cannot go on without destroying the old landmarks, and I am so
+old-fashioned that change of any kind saddens me. People move away,
+strangers take their houses, the girls marry, children grow up, and
+everything is so mutable that sometimes my cheerfulness has a haze to it.</p>
+
+<p>I am in a mood of retrospection to-night. I am living over the past and
+knitting up the ravelled ends.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Rachel! I am thankful that she and Percival continue so happy. It is
+<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 175]</span>wonderful how every one recognizes and speaks of the completeness of
+these two. They do not parade their affection. They seem rather to try to
+hide it even from me, as if it were almost too sacred for even my kindly
+eyes. It is in the atmosphere, and, though they go their separate ways,
+they are more thoroughly together than any other married people I know.</p>
+
+<p>Both Percival and Rachel are becoming very generally recognized now.
+People are discovering how wonderfully clever their work is, and they
+share themselves with the public, although it is a sacrifice every time
+they do so. Rachel&#8217;s rather turbulent cleverness has softened down. She
+says it is because it is &ldquo;billowed in another greater and gentler sort.&rdquo;
+She looks at me rather wistfully sometimes. I know what she thinks, but
+she does not bore me with questions. I wonder if she thinks I regret
+anything. Unless I consider that the Percivals have redeemed the record I
+am keeping, there is nothing especially tempting in the marriages I am
+watching. I cannot think that they are any happier than I am.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 176]</span>Sallie Cox seems contented most of the time. She has a magnificent
+establishment, handsomer than all the rest of the girls&#8217; put together. Her
+husband &ldquo;doesn&#8217;t bother&rdquo; her, she says, and the Osbornes are very popular.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&#8217;m glad I&#8217;m shallow,&rdquo; she said to me once. &ldquo;Shallow hearts do not ache
+long. If I had a deep nature I should go mad or turn into a saint. As it
+is, I wear the scars.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Once, when I went with her to Rachel&#8217;s, she sat and looked around the
+simple, inexpensive house, with the walls all lined with books and no room
+too good to live in every day, and she said,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is the prettiest home I ever was in in my life, and there is not a
+lace curtain in the house!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>We laughed&mdash;everybody laughs at Sallie&mdash;and Rachel said gently,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We don&#8217;t need them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Sallie looked up quickly and took in the full significance of the words,
+as she answered in the same tone,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, you do not, but I do.&rdquo; And each woman had told her heart history.
+Now,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 177]</span> Rachel must know almost as much about Sallie as I do; but she never
+will know all.</p>
+
+<p>Sallie said she went home and hated every room in her house separately and
+specifically; then she had a good cry over &ldquo;the perfectness of the
+Percivals,&rdquo; and issued invitations to a masked ball.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That ball was full of significance, Ruth,&rdquo; she told me afterwards with
+her most whimsically knowing look. &ldquo;It was bristling with it. But nobody
+thought of it except a certain little goose I know named Sara Cox
+Osborne.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jack Whitehouse and Pet Winterbotham are married. They had the most
+beautiful wedding I ever saw; but it was like watching the babes in the
+wood, for they are <em>such</em> a young-looking pair.</p>
+
+<p>I understand better now what Pet meant when she talked about Jack&#8217;s
+appearance so much. I think he expressed to her the idea of perpetual
+youth and eternal spring-time. To me, too, it seems as if he ought always
+to be yachting in blue and white, or lying at full length on the grass at
+some girl&#8217;s feet. And Pet herself makes an admirable<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 178]</span> companion-piece.
+When I see her in a misty white ball-dress, with one man bringing her an
+ice and another holding her flowers and a third bearing her filmy wraps, I
+feel that things are quite as they should be. Some people seem to be born
+for fair weather and smooth sailing.</p>
+
+<p>It is too soon to judge them finally. Norris Whitehouse&#8217;s nephew will
+outgrow the ball-room, and Pet will find in Louise an incentive to grow
+womanly.</p>
+
+<p>The Asburys have built a fine house since Alice&#8217;s father died, and go
+about a great deal, but seldom together. Asbury lives at the club, and
+Alice has her mother with her. Alice has embraced Theosophy and spells her
+name &ldquo;Alys.&rdquo; She always is interested in something new and advanced, and
+whenever I meet her I am prepared to go into ecstasies over a plan to save
+men&#8217;s souls by electricity, or something equally speedy in the moral line.
+She is daft on spiritual rapid transit.</p>
+
+<p>She does these things because she is a disappointed, clever, ambitious
+woman, who would have made a noble character<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 179]</span> if she had been surrounded
+by right influences.</p>
+
+<p>What would have been the result if Alice had taken as her creed: &ldquo;The
+situation that has not its duty, its ideals, was never yet occupied by
+man. Yes, here in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual,
+wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal; work it out
+therefrom, and working, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself; thy
+condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of; what
+matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou give
+it be heroic, be poetic? Oh, thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the
+Actual and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and
+create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee,
+&lsquo;here or nowhere,&rsquo; couldst thou only see&rdquo;?</p>
+
+<p>Ah, well, she could not. She still is crying to the gods and spelling her
+name &ldquo;Alys.&rdquo; Her cleverness must have an outlet, and, with worse than no
+husband to lavish it upon, she scatters it to the four winds<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 180]</span> of heaven
+and gets herself talked about as &ldquo;queer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>May Brandt has bitten into her apples of Sodom, and the taste of ashes is
+bitter indeed to her. She knows now that Brandt never loved her, and did
+love Alice. I do not know whether she thinks he still cares for Alice or
+not. May never had much beauty to lose, but she looks worn and unhappy,
+and watches Alice with a degree of feeling which would appear vulgar to me
+if I did not know just how miserable she is. She is hopelessly plain now,
+and Alice is still like a tall, stately lily. Brandt devours her with his
+eyes, but Alice makes him keep his distance.</p>
+
+<p>Sallie Cox has been diplomatic and harmless enough to make Alice forgive
+her, and they are quite good friends; but Alice is magnificent in her
+scorn of Brandt&#8217;s wife, who almost cowers in her presence.</p>
+
+<p>Poor May! I wish I could take that look of suffering from her little
+pinched, three-cornered face for just one hour. But how could I? How could
+anybody who knew all about it?</p>
+
+<p>She does not understand Alice in all her<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 181]</span> moods and vagaries, and Alice
+does not condescend to explain herself even to her friends. I do not
+believe that Alice and Brandt have ever spoken on the subject which
+occupies three minds whenever they two are thrown together. Yet I imagine
+it would be a relief to May if she were told that. However, she is
+scarcely noble enough to believe it, even if Alice herself should tell
+her. But Alice never will. She never gives it a thought. Brandt, too, has
+honor, though, even if he had not, Alice would have it for him and forbid
+a word.</p>
+
+<p>It is a fortunate thing for some people&#8217;s chances for a future life that
+there are a reasonable number of consciences distributed through the
+world, although it would be an Old Maid&#8217;s suggestion that sometimes they
+be allowed to drive instead of being used as a liveried tiger&mdash;for
+ornament and always behind. It is a great pity that people who are
+supplied with them&mdash;and well-cultivated consciences too&mdash;have not the
+courage to live up to them, but allow themselves to be gently and feebly
+miserable all their lives.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 182]</span>Now, Charlie Hardy has periods of being the most miserable man I ever
+knew. His last interview with Louise must have been as serious a thing as
+he ever experienced. He has married Frankie Taliaferro, and she makes the
+sweetest little kitten of a wife you ever saw. In Louise he would have
+been protected by a coat of mail. In Frankie he finds it turned into a
+pale-blue eider-down quilt, which suits his temperament much better.</p>
+
+<p>Louise Whitehouse is coming home soon. Her year abroad has lengthened into
+several years, and they have been the most beautiful of her life, she
+writes. &ldquo;Living with a song in one&#8217;s life may be the sweetest while it
+lasts and before one thinks; but to live by a psalm is to find life
+infinitely more beautiful and worthier. I never can be thankful enough
+that my life was taken out of my hands at the time when I clung to it most
+blindly, and ordered anew by One stronger and wiser than I.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tears come to my eyes whenever I think of this girl. I do not quite know
+why, unless it is that there always is something<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 183]</span> sad in watching the
+tempering of a bright young enthusiasm, even though it becomes more useful
+than when so sparkling and high-strung.</p>
+
+<p>I have been at great pains to have Charlie Hardy realize how happy Louise
+is, but his conscience still troubles him at times. He says he knows he
+did the right thing for every one concerned, but he dislikes the idea of
+himself in so disagreeable a r&ocirc;le; and Louise&#8217;s opinion of him now, after
+the one she did have, is a constant humiliation to him. Women always have
+admired him, and he objects very strongly to any exception to the rule. I
+think he misses the mental ozone which he found in Louise. I often wonder
+if men who have loved superior women and married average ones do not have
+occasional wonderings and yearnings over lost &ldquo;might have beens.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Mayos still live in the brown house, which has been enlarged and
+greatly beautified recently. I have an enthusiastic friendship with the
+children, who are growing into slim slips of girls and sturdy, clear-eyed
+boys, and their house is still a home. Frank&#8217;s<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 184]</span> admiration for soubrettes
+died a sudden and violent death at the masked notoriety of his initial
+escapade, and for a time he was shocked into better behavior. We hear odd
+rumors floating around, however, of whose truth we never can be sure, but
+which we shake our heads over, after the fashion of those whose confidence
+has been caught napping once. We never knew whether Nellie discovered the
+truth or not. If Frank denied it, it would not affect matters with her if
+the world rang with it. Her idolatry has a certain blind stubbornness in
+it which I should not care to beat against.</p>
+
+<p>Bronson does not stand as straight as he did when I first knew him. Rachel
+says he has &ldquo;a scholarly stoop.&rdquo; But she knows, and I know, that something
+besides law-books and parchment has taken the elasticity out of his step.</p>
+
+<p>Many years have gone by since I became an Old Maid. I want to call my
+Alter Ego&#8217;s attention to this fact gently but firmly, because I have an
+idea that she still considers herself &ldquo;only thirty,&rdquo; and that she thinks
+she has just begun to be an Old Maid.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 185]</span> Whereas she is old and so am I. I
+do not mind it at all. Neither does she; it is only that she had not
+realized it. We have so much to think about more important than our stupid
+ages. People have grown used to seeing us about, and we like the same
+things, and keep going at about the same pace and in the same road, and I
+think we have come to be an Institution.</p>
+
+<p>I have no worries which I do not borrow from my married friends. I keep up
+with the fashions; my clothes fit me; my fingers still come to the ends of
+my gloves; I feel no leaning towards all-over cloth shoes; I have not gone
+permanently into bonnets. I have tried to be a pleasant Old Maid, and my
+reward is that my friends make me feel as if they liked to have me about.
+I am not made to feel that I am <em>pass&eacute;</em>. One&#8217;s clothes and one&#8217;s feelings
+are all that ever make one <em>pass&eacute;</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I have turned my face resolutely towards the setting sun. I
+am resting now. I have given up struggling against the inevitable. That is
+a privilege and an attribute of youth. I feel as though I were<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 186]</span> only
+beginning to live, now that I have passed through the period of turmoil
+and come out from the rapids into gently gliding water. There is so much
+in life which we could not see at the beginning, but which grows with our
+growth and bears us company in the richness of evening-tide. I have
+learned to love my life and to cultivate it. Who knows what is in her life
+until she has tended it and made it know that she expects something from
+it in return for all her aspirations and endeavors? Even my wasted efforts
+are dear to me.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&#8217;Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">And ask them what report they bore to Heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1a">And how they might have borne more welcome news.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yet there is a sadness in looking back. I see the many lost opportunities
+lifting to me their wistful faces, and dumbly pleading with me to accept
+them and their promises; yet I carelessly passed them by. I see worse. I
+see the rents in the hedge, where I forced my wilful way into forbidden
+fields, and only regained my path after weary <span class='pagenum'>[Pg 187]</span>wandering, brier-torn, and
+none the better for my folly. Lost faces come before me which I might have
+gladdened oftener. Voices sound in my ear whose tones I might have made
+happier if I would. Withheld sympathy rises up before me deploring its
+wasted treasure. How can any one be happy in looking back? The only
+pleasure in looking forward is in hope. Yet now both grief and joy are
+tempered with a softness which enfolds my fretted spirit gratefully.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">&ldquo;Time has laid his hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon my heart gently; not smiting it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as a harper lays his open palm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon his harp to deaden its vibrations.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And so I am looking forward to-night to an old age more peaceful, less
+turbulent, than my youth has been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life
+holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise
+comprehend. Possibly this is one reason why youth is so anxious to
+concentrate enjoyment. But I am tired of concentration. There is a wear
+and tear about it which precludes the possibility of pleasure. I want<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 188]</span> to
+take the rest of my life gently, and by redoubled tenderness repay it for
+rude handling in my youth&mdash;that youth which lies very far away from me
+to-night and is wrapped in a rainbow mist.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">THE END</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 189]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LOVE-LETTERS</h2>
+<p class="center">OF A</p>
+<h2>WORLDLY WOMAN.</h2>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;">
+By Mrs. <span class="smcap">W. K. Clifford</span>, Author of &ldquo;Aunt Anne,&rdquo; &ldquo;Mrs. Keith&#8217;s Crime,&rdquo; etc.
+16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $1 25.</p>
+
+
+<p class="small">
+This volume contains three brilliant love-stories well worth reading....
+The letters are original and audacious, and are full of a certain
+intellectual &ldquo;abandon&rdquo; which is sure to charm the cultivated reader.... We
+trust that Mrs. W. K. Clifford will give us more fiction in this
+delicately humorous, subtle, and analytic vein.&mdash;<em>Literary World</em>, Boston.</p>
+
+<p class="small">
+Mrs. Clifford&#8217;s literary style is excellent, and the love-letters always
+have their special interest.&mdash;<em>N.Y. Times.</em></p>
+
+<p class="small">
+There is abundant cleverness in it. The situations are presented with
+skill and force, and the letters are written with great dramatic propriety
+and much humor.&mdash;<em>St. James&#8217;s Gazette</em>, London.</p>
+
+<p class="small">
+In short analytical stories of this kind Mrs. Clifford has come to take a
+unique position in England. In the delicate, ingenious, forcible use of
+language, to express the results of an unusual range of observation, she
+stands to our literature as De Maupassant and Bourget stand to the
+literature of France.&mdash;<em>Black and White</em>, London.</p>
+
+<p class="small">
+The study of character is so acute, the analysis of motives and conduct so
+skilful, and, withal, the wit and satire so keen, that the reader does not
+tire.&mdash;<em>Christian Intelligencer</em>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<p class="center"><strong><em>Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York.</em></strong></p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 47px;">
+<img src="images/imghand.jpg" width="47" height="24" alt="Pointing finger" title="" />
+</div>
+<p class="small"><em>The above work will be sent by mail, postage
+prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt
+of the price.</em></p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 190]</span></p><hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>UNHAPPY LOVES</h2>
+<p class="center">OF</p>
+<h2>MEN OF GENIUS.</h2>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;">
+By <span class="smcap">Thomas Hitchcock</span>. With Twelve Portraits. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1
+25.</p>
+
+
+<p class="small">
+A fascinating book. So taking are its rapidly interchanging lights and
+shadows that one reads it from beginning to end without any thought of
+possible intrusion.&mdash;<em>Observer</em>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p class="small">
+The simple and perspicuous style in which Mr. Hitchcock tells these
+stories of unhappy loves is not less admirable than the learning and the
+extensive reading and investigation which have enabled him to gather the
+facts presented in a manner so engaging. His volume is an important
+contribution to literature, and it is of universal interest.&mdash;<em>N.Y. Sun.</em></p>
+
+<p class="small">
+The stories are concisely and sympathetically told, and the book presents
+in small compass what, in lieu of it, must be sought through many
+volumes.&mdash;<em>Dial</em>, Chicago.</p>
+
+<p class="small">
+A very interesting little book.... The studies are carefully and aptly
+made, and add something to one&#8217;s sense of personal acquaintanceship with
+those men and women who were before not strangers.&mdash;<em>Evangelist</em>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<p class="center"><strong><em>Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York.</em></strong></p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 47px;">
+<img src="images/imghand.jpg" width="47" height="24" alt="Pointing finger" title="" />
+</div>
+<p class="small"><em>The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any
+part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</em></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Love Affairs of an Old Maid, by Lilian Bell
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,4039 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Love Affairs of an Old Maid, by Lilian Bell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Love Affairs of an Old Maid
+
+Author: Lilian Bell
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #22047]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Anne Storer, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+     The original text noted chapters as 1, 2, 3 etc. in the TOC,
+   and I, II, III etc. in chapter headers. These have been retained.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                 THE
+
+                      LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID
+
+                                  BY
+                              LILIAN BELL
+
+
+        "_Some ships reach happy ports that are not steered_"
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                     HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+
+
+               Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+                         _All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+This book is dedicated very fondly to my beloved family, who, in their
+anxiety to render me material assistance, have offered me such diverse
+opinions as to its merit that their criticisms radiate from me in as many
+directions as there are spokes to a wheel.
+
+This leaves the distraught hub with no opinion of its own, and with
+flaring, ragged edges.
+
+Nevertheless, thus must it appear before the public, whose opinion will be
+the tire which shall enable my wheel to revolve. If it be favorable, one
+may look for smooth riding; if unfavorable, one must expect jolts.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+It is a pity that there is no prettier term to bestow upon a girl bachelor
+of any age than Old Maid. "Spinster" is equally uncomfortable, suggesting,
+as it does, corkscrew curls and immoderate attenuation of frame; while
+"maiden lady," which the ultra-punctilious substitute, is entirely too
+mincing for sensible, whole-souled people to countenance.
+
+I dare say that more women would have the courage to remain unmarried were
+there so euphonious a title awaiting them as that of "bachelor," which,
+when shorn of its accompanying adjective "old," simply means unmarried.
+
+The word "bachelor," too, has somewhat of a jaunty sound, implying to the
+sensitive ear that its owner could have been married--oh, several times
+over--if he had wished. But both "spinster" and "old maid" have narrow,
+restricted attributes, which, to say the least, imply doubt as to past
+opportunity.
+
+Names are covertly responsible for many overt acts. Carlyle, when he said,
+"The name is the earliest garment you wrap around the earth-visiting me.
+Names? Not only all common speech, but Science, Poetry itself, if thou
+consider it, is no other than a right naming," sounded a wonderful note in
+Moral Philosophy, which rings false many a time in real life, when to ring
+true would change the whole face of affairs.
+
+Thus I boldly affirm, that were there a proper sounding title to cover the
+class of unmarried women, many a marriage which now takes place, with
+either moderate success or distinct failure, would remain in pleasing
+embryo.
+
+Of the three evils among names for my book, therefore, I leave you to
+determine whether I have chosen the greatest or least. The writing of it
+came about in this way.
+
+In a conversation concerning modern marriage, the unwisdom people display
+in choice, and the complicated affair it has come to be from a pastoral
+beginning, I said lightly, "I shall write a book upon this subject some
+fine day, and I shall call it 'The Love Affairs of an Old Maid,' because
+popular prejudice decrees that the love affairs of an old maid necessarily
+are those of other people."
+
+No sooner had the name suggested in broad jest taken form in my mind than
+straightway every thought I possessed crystallized around it, and I found
+myself impelled by a malevolent Fate to begin it.
+
+It became a fixed intention on a Sunday morning in church during a most
+excellent sermon, the text and substance of which I have forgotten.
+Doubtless more of real worth and benefit to mankind was pent up in that
+sermon than four books of my own writing could accomplish. But, with the
+delightful candor of John Kendrick Bangs, I explain my lapse of memory
+thus--
+
+    "I dote on Milton and on Robert Burns;
+       I love old Marryat--his tales of pelf;
+     I live on Byron; but my heart most yearns
+       Towards those sweet things that I've penned myself."
+
+So the book has been written. The existence of the Old Maid often has been
+a precarious one; she has been surrounded by danger, once narrowly
+escaping cremation. But my humanity towards dumb brutes saved her. I might
+have sacrificed a woman, but I could not kill a cat. So she lives,
+unconsciously owing her life to her cat.
+
+Thus she comes to you, bearing her friends in her heart. I should scarcely
+dare ask you to welcome her, did I not suspect that her friends are yours.
+You have your Flossy and your Charlie Hardy without doubt. Pray Heaven you
+have a Rachel to outweigh them.
+
+CHICAGO, _March, 1893_.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+
+   1. I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF                          1
+
+   2. I COME INTO MY KINGDOM                            8
+
+   3. MATRIMONY IN HARNESS                             18
+
+   4. WOMEN AS LOVERS                                  30
+
+   5. THE HEART OF A COQUETTE                          51
+
+   6. THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD           65
+
+   7. A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE                           78
+
+   8. A GAME OF HEARTS                                 91
+
+   9. THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND                   120
+
+  10. THE PATHOS OF FAITH                             137
+
+  11. THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE                       156
+
+  12. IN WHICH I WILLINGLY TURN MY FACE WESTWARD      174
+
+
+
+
+                    THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF ON OLD MAID
+
+
+                           *       *       *
+
+                                   I
+
+                        I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF
+
+                "There is a luxury in self-dispraise;
+                 And inward self-disparagement affords
+                 To meditative spleen a grateful feast."
+
+
+To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. What a trying thing to have to say even
+to one's self, and how vexed I should be if anybody else said it to me!
+Nevertheless, it is a comfort to be brutally honest once in a while to
+myself. I do not dare, I do not care, to be so to everybody. But with my
+own self, I can feel that it is strictly a family affair. If I hurt my
+feelings, I can grieve over it until I apologize. If I flatter myself, I
+am only doing what every other woman in the world is doing in her
+innermost consciousness, and flattery as honest as flattery from one's
+own self naturally would be could not fail to please me. Besides, it would
+have the unique value of being believed by both sides--a situation in the
+flattery line which I fancy has no rival.
+
+It is well to become acquainted with one's self at all hazards, and as I
+am going to be my own partner in the rubber of life, I can do nothing
+better than to study my own hand. So, to harrow up my feelings as only I
+dare to do, I write down that it is really true of me that I passed the
+first corner five years ago, and to-morrow I shall be 30.
+
+What a disagreeable figure a 3 is; I never noticed it before. It looks so
+self-satisfied. And as to that fat, hollow 0 which follows it--I always
+did detest round numbers.
+
+30; there it goes again. I must accustom myself to it privately, so I
+write it down once more, and it laughs in my face and mocks me. Then I
+laugh back at it and say aloud that it is true, and for the time being I
+have cowed it and become its master. What boots it if the laughter is a
+trifle hollow? There is no harm in deceiving two miserable little figures.
+
+Let me revel in my youth while I may. To-night I am a gay young thing of
+twenty-nine. To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. I have very little time
+left in which to make myself ridiculous and have it excused on account of
+my youth. But somehow I do not feel very gay. I have a curious feeling
+about my heart, as if I were at a burial--one where I was burying
+something that I had always loved very dearly, but secretly, and which
+would always be a sweet and tender memory with me. I feel nervous, too,
+quite as if I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I remember that
+Alice Asbury said she was hysterical just before she was married. I wonder
+if a woman's feelings on the eve of being an Old Maid are unlike those of
+one about to become a bride.
+
+My cat sits eying me with sleepy approval. I always liked cats. And tea.
+Why have I never thought of it before? It is not my fault that I am an Old
+Maid. I was cut out for one. All my tendencies point that way. Please
+don't blame me, good people. Come here, Tabby. You and Missis will grow
+old together.
+
+After all, it is a sad thing when one realizes for the first time that
+one's youth is slipping away. But why? Why do women of great intelligence,
+of intellect even, blush with pleasure at the implication of youth?
+
+There are fashions in thought as well as in dress, and the best of us
+follow both, as sheep follow their leader. We will sometimes follow our
+neighbor's line of insular prejudice, when worlds could not bribe us to
+copy her grammar or her gowns. Dull people admire youth. They excuse its
+follies; they adore its prettiness. That it is only a period of education,
+and that real life begins with maturity, does not enter into their minds.
+The odor of bread and butter does not nauseate them. Dull people, I
+say--and God pity us, most of us are dull--admire youth. Men love it.
+Therefore we all want to be young. We strive to be young, nay, we _will_
+be young.
+
+I am no better than my neighbors. I, too, am young when I am with people.
+But there are times when I am alone when the strain of being young
+relaxes, and I luxuriate in being old, old, old, when I cease being
+contemporary, and look back fondly to the time when the world and I
+were in embryo.
+
+And yet I wonder if extreme age is as repulsive to everybody as it is
+to me. Forty seems a long way off. I fancy people at forty become very
+uninteresting to the oncoming generation. Fifty is grandmotherly and
+suitable for little else. Sixty, seventy, and beyond seem to me one
+horrible jumble of wrinkles and wheezes and false beauty and general
+unpleasantness. Oh, I hope, if I should live to be over fifty, that I may
+be a pleasant old person. I hope my teeth will fit me, and the parting to
+my wave be always in the middle. I hope my fingers will always come fully
+to the ends of my gloves, and that I never shall wear my spectacles on top
+of my head. But I hope more than all that it isn't wicked to wish to die
+before I come to these things.
+
+Before I entirely lose my youth--in other words, before I become an Old
+Maid, let me see what I must give up. Lovers, of course. That goes
+without saying. And if I give them up, it will not do to have their
+photographs standing around. They must be--oh! and their letters--must
+they too be destroyed? Dear me, no! I'll just fold them all together and
+lay them away, like a wedding-dress which never has been worn. And I'll
+put girls' pictures or missionaries' or martyrs' into the empty frames.
+Martyrs' would be most appropriate.
+
+Now for a box to put them in. A pretty box, so that one who runs may read?
+Not so, you sentimental Elderly Person. Take this tin box with a lock on
+it. There you are, done up in a japanned box and padlocked. I would say
+that it looks like a little coffin if I wasn't afraid of what my Alter Ego
+would say. She seems cross to-night. I wonder what is the matter with her.
+She must be getting old. I should like to hang the key around my neck on a
+blue ribbon, but I am afraid. "What if you should be run over and killed,"
+she says, "or should faint away in church? Remember that you are an Old
+Maid." How disagreeable old maids can be! And I've got to live with this
+one always. I'll put the key in my purse. Nice, sensible, prosaic place,
+a purse.
+
+How late it grows! I have only a little time left. I believe that clock
+is fast. Dear, dear! Do I want to just sit still and watch myself turn?
+I meant to have old age overtake me in my sleep. I think I'll stop that
+clock and let my youth fade from me unawares.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+                         I COME INTO MY KINGDOM
+
+     "There is no compensation for the woman who feels that the chief
+     relation of her life has been no more than a mistake. She has lost
+     her crown. The deepest secret of human blessedness has half
+     whispered itself to her and then forever passed her by."
+
+
+I have become an Old Maid, and really it is a relief. I feel as if I had
+left myself behind me, and that now I have a right to the interests of
+other people when they are freely offered. My friends always have confided
+in me. I suppose it is because I am receptive. Men tell me their old love
+affairs. Girls tell me the whole story of their engagements--how they came
+to take this man, and why they did not take that one. And even the most
+ordinary are vitally interesting. Before I know it, I am rent with the
+same despair which agitates the lover confiding in me; or I am wreathed
+in the smiles of the engaged girl who is getting her absorbing secret
+comfortably off her mind. It seems to comfort them to air their emotion,
+and sometimes I am convinced that they leave the most of it with me.
+
+Now I can feel at liberty to enjoy and sympathize as I will. Well, the
+love affairs of other people are the rightful inheritance of old maids.
+In sharing them I am only coming into my kingdom.
+
+Alice Asbury has made shipwreck of hers. The girl is actively miserable
+and her husband is indifferently uncomfortable, which is the habit this
+married couple have of experiencing the same emotion.
+
+Alice is a mass of contradictions to those who do not understand her--now
+in the clouds, now in the depths. Bad weather depresses her; so does a sad
+story, the death of a kitten, solemn music. She is correspondingly
+volatile in the opposite direction and often laughs at real calamities
+with wonderful courage. She has a fund of romance in her nature which has
+led her to the pass she now is in. She is clever, too, at introspection
+and analysis--of herself chiefly. She studies her own sensations and
+dissects her moods. Her selfishness is of the peculiar sort which should
+have kept her from marrying until she found the hundredth man who could
+appreciate her genius and bend it into nobler channels. Unfortunately she
+married one of the ninety-nine. She is not, perhaps, more selfish than
+many another woman, but her selfishness is different. She is mentally
+cross-eyed from turning her eyes inward so constantly.
+
+She became engaged to Brandt--a man in every way worthy of her--and they
+loved each other devotedly. Then during a quarrel she broke the
+engagement, and he, being piqued by her withdrawal, immediately married
+May Lawrence, who had been patiently in love with him for five years, and
+who was only waiting for some such turn as this to deliver him into her
+hands. A poetic justice visits him with misery, for he still cares for
+Alice. May, however, is not conscious of this fact as yet.
+
+Alice, being doubly stung by his defection, was just in the mood to do
+something desperate, when she began to see a great deal of Asbury, fresh
+from being jilted by Sallie Cox. Asbury was moody, and confided in Alice.
+Alice was foolish, and confided in him. They both decided that their
+hearts were ashes, love burned out, and life a howling wilderness, and
+then proceeded to exchange these empty hearts of theirs, and to go through
+the howling wilderness together.
+
+Alice came to tell me about it. They had no love to give each other, she
+said sadly, but they were going to be married. I would have laughed at her
+if she had not been so tragic. But there is something about Alice, in
+spite of her romantic folly, (which she has adapted from the French to
+suit her American needs,) which forbids ridicule. Nevertheless I felt,
+with one of those sudden flashes of intuition, that this choice of hers
+was a hideous mistake. The situation repelled me. But the very strangeness
+of it seemed to attract the morbid Alice. And it was this one curious
+strain of unexplained foolishness marring her otherwise strong and in many
+ways beautiful character which prevented my loving her completely and
+safely. Nevertheless, I cared for her enough to enter my feeble and futile
+protest; but it was waved aside with the superb effrontery of a woman who
+feels that she controls the situation with her head, and whose heart is
+not at liberty to make uncomfortable complications. I would rather argue
+with a woman who is desperately in love, to prevent her marrying the man
+of her choice, than to try to dissuade a woman from marrying a man she has
+set her head upon. You feel sympathy with the former, and you have human
+nature and the whole glorious love-making Past at your back, to give you
+confidence and eloquence. But with the latter you are cowed and beaten
+beforehand, and tongue-tied during the contest.
+
+So she became Alice Asbury, and these two blighted beings took a flat.
+Before they had been at home from their honeymoon a week she came down to
+see me, and told me that she hated Asbury.
+
+Imagine a bride whose bouquet, only a month before, you had held at the
+altar, and heard her promise to love, honor, and obey a man until death
+did them part, coming to you with a confession like that. Still, if but
+one half she tells me of him is true, I do not wonder that she hates him.
+
+With her revolutionary, anarchistic completeness, she has renounced the
+idea of compromise or adaptability as finally as if she had seen and
+passed the end of the world. There is no more pliability in her with
+regard to Asbury than there is in a steel rod. How different she used to
+be with Brandt! How she consulted his wishes and accommodated herself to
+him!
+
+When a woman born to be ruled by love only passes by her master spirit,
+she becomes an anomaly in woman--she makes complications over which the
+psychologist wastes midnight oil, and if he never discovers the solution,
+it is because of its very simplicity.
+
+All the sweetness seems to have left Alice's nature. She keeps somebody
+with her every moment. That one guest chamber in her flat has been
+occupied by all the girls that she can persuade to visit her. Asbury
+dislikes company, but she says she does not care. She cannot keep
+visitors long, because as soon as they discover that they are unwelcome
+to Asbury, naturally they go home.
+
+Fortunately, Asbury does not care for Sallie Cox any more. When his vanity
+was wounded, his love died instantly. I think he is more in love with
+himself than he ever was with any woman. There are men, you know, whose
+one grand passion in life is for themselves. But Alice knows that Brandt
+still cares for her, and she feeds her romantic fancy on this fact, and
+has her introspective miseries to her heart's content. She is far too
+cool-headed a woman to do anything rash. Sometimes I think her morbid
+nature obtains more real satisfaction out of her joyless situation than
+positive happiness would compensate her for. She appears to take a certain
+negative pleasure in it. Their marriage is the product of a false
+civilization, and I pity them--at a distance--from the bottom of my heart.
+I am sorry for Brandt, too, for he honestly loved Alice and might have
+proved the hundredth man--who knows?
+
+I do not quite know whether to be sorry for May Brandt or not, for she
+made complications and made them purposely. She made them so promptly,
+too, that she precluded the possibility of a reconciliation between Alice
+and Brandt. If Brandt had remained single, I doubt whether Alice would
+have had the courage to form an engagement with any other man. She loved
+him too truly to take the first step towards an eternal separation. Women
+seldom dare make that first move, except as a decoy. They are naturally
+superstitious, and even when curiously free from this trait in everything
+else, they cling to a little in love, and dare not tempt Fate too
+insolently.
+
+A woman who has quarrelled with her lover, in her secret heart expects him
+back daily and hourly, no matter what the cause of the estrangement, until
+he becomes involved with another woman. Then she lays all the blame of his
+defection at the door of the alien, where, in the opinion of an Old Maid,
+it generally belongs.
+
+If other women would let men alone, constancy would be less of a hollow
+mockery. (Query, but is it constancy where there is no temptation to be
+fickle?) Nevertheless, let "another woman" sympathize with an estranged
+lover, and place a little delicate blame upon his sweetheart and flatter
+him a great deal, and _presto!_ you have one of those criss-cross
+engagements which turns life to a dull gray for the aching heart which
+is left out.
+
+If, too, when this honestly loving woman appears to take the first step,
+her actions and mental processes could be analyzed and timed, it
+frequently would prove that, with her quicker calculations, she foresaw
+the fatal effect of the "other-woman" element, and, desirous of protecting
+her vanity, reached blindly out to the nearest man at her command, and
+married him with magnificent effrontery, just to circumvent humiliation
+and to take a little wind out of the other woman's sails. But could you
+make her lover believe that? Never.
+
+And so May Lawrence played the "other woman" in the Asbury tragedy. I
+wonder if she is satisfied with her role. A girl who wilfully catches a
+man's heart on the rebound, does the thing which involves more risk than
+anything else malevolent fate could devise.
+
+On the whole, I think I am sorry for her, for she has apples of Sodom in
+her hand, although as yet to her delighted gaze they appear the fairest
+of summer fruit.
+
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+                          MATRIMONY IN HARNESS
+
+                               "What eagles are we still
+                  In matters that belong to other men;
+                  What beetles in our own!"
+
+
+The more I know of horses, the more natural I think men and women are in
+the unequalness of their marriages. I never yet saw a pair of horses so
+well matched that they pulled evenly all the time. The more skilful the
+driver, the less he lets the discrepancy become apparent. Going up hill,
+one horse generally does the greater share of work. If they pull equally
+up hill, sometimes they see-saw and pull in jerks on a level road. And I
+never saw a marriage in which both persons pulled evenly all the time, and
+the worst of it is, I suppose this unevenness is only what is always
+expected.
+
+Having no marriage of my own to worry over, it is gratuitous when I worry
+over other people's. Old maids, you know, like to air their views on
+matrimony and bringing up children. Their theories on these subjects have
+this advantage--that they always hold good because they never are tried.
+
+There never was such an unequal yoking together as the Herricks'. Nobody
+has told me. This is one of the affairs which has not been confided to me.
+Only, I knew them both so well before they were married. I knew Bronson
+Herrick best, however, because I never used to see any more of Flossy than
+was necessary.
+
+To begin with, I never liked her name. I have an idea that names show
+character. Could anybody under heaven be noble with such a name as Flossy?
+I believe names handicap people. I believe children are sometimes tortured
+by hideous and unmeaning names. But give them strong, ugly names in
+preference to Ina and Bessie and Flossy and such pretty-pretty names, with
+no meaning and no character to them. Take my own name, Ruth. If I wanted
+to be noble or heroic I could be; my name would not be an anomalous
+nightmare to attract attention to the incongruity. We cannot be too
+thankful to our mothers who named us Mary and Dorothy and Constance. What
+an inspiration to be "faithful over a few things" such a name as Constance
+must be!
+
+But Flossy's mother named her--not Florence, but Flossy. I suppose she was
+one of those fluffy, curly, silky babies. She grew to be that kind of a
+girl--a Flossy girl. It speaks for itself. I suppose with that name she
+never had any incentive to outgrow her nature.
+
+It came out on her wedding cards:
+
+    "Mr. and Mrs. CHARLES FAY CARLETON
+     request you to be present at the
+        marriage of their daughter
+                 FLOSSY
+                   to
+       Mr. BRONSON STURGIS HERRICK."
+
+The contrast between the two names, hers so nonsensical and his so
+dignified and strong, was no greater than that between the two people.
+In truth, their names were symbolic of their natures. It looked really
+pitiful to me.
+
+I wondered if anybody besides Rachel English and me looked into their
+future with apprehension. Our misgivings, I must admit, were all for
+Bronson.
+
+Ah, well-a-day! It is so easy to feel sympathy for a man you admire,
+especially if he is strong and loyal, and does not ask or desire it of
+you.
+
+Flossy was one of those cuddling girls. She appealed to you with her eyes,
+and you found yourself petting her and sympathizing with her, when, if you
+stopped to think, you would see that she had more of everything than you
+had. She possessed a rich father, a beautiful house, and perfect health.
+Nevertheless, you found yourself asking after "poor Flossy," and your
+voice commiserated her if your words did not. She invariably had some
+trifling ill to tell you of. She had hurt her arm, or scratched her hand,
+or the snow made her eyes ache, or she was tired. She never seemed at
+liberty to enjoy herself, although she went everywhere, and seemed to do
+so successfully in spite of her imaginary ills, if you let her enjoy
+herself by telling you of them.
+
+Everybody helped Flossy to live. Everybody protected and looked after her.
+There was some one on his knees continually, removing invisible brambles
+from her rose-leaf path. She didn't know how to do anything for herself.
+She never buttoned her own boots. When her maid was not with her, other
+people put her jacket on for her, and carried her umbrella and buttoned
+her gloves. Men always buttoned her gloves, and her gloves always had more
+buttons, and more unruly buttons, than any other gloves I ever saw. But
+then I am elderly.
+
+I never knew Flossy to do anything for anybody. She never gave things
+away, but on Christmas and her birthdays she received remembrances from
+everybody. I used to make her presents without knowing why or even
+thinking of it. Flossy's name was on all the Christmas lists, and she used
+to shed tears over the kindness of her friends, and write the prettiest
+notes to them, so plaintive and self-deprecatory. Then they took her to
+drive, or did something more for her. Flossy read poetry and cried over
+it. She wrote poetry too, and other people cried over that.
+
+When Bronson Herrick told me he was going to marry her, I wanted to say,
+"No, you are not." But I didn't. I did not even seem to be surprised, for
+he is so proud he would have resented any surprise on my part. He told me
+about it of course, knowing that I could not fail to be pleased. (His
+photograph is in that japanned box of mine. This smile on my face, Tabby,
+is rather sardonic. Why is it that men expect an old sweetheart to take an
+active interest in their bride-elect, and are so deadly sure that they
+will like each other?)
+
+"She is the most sympathetic little thing," he said enthusiastically. "She
+reminds me of you in so many ways. You are very much alike."
+
+"Oh, thank you, Bronson Sturgis Herrick! I assure you I would cheerfully
+drown myself if I thought you were right about that," I exclaimed
+mentally.
+
+He repeated over and over that she was "so sympathetic." He meant, of
+course, that she had wept over him. Flossy's tears flow like rain if you
+crook your finger at her, and tears wring the heart of a man like Bronson.
+To think he was going to marry her! I just looked at him, I remember, as
+he stood so straight and tall before me, and said to myself, "Well, you
+dear, honest, loyal, clever man! You are just the kind of a man that women
+fool most unmercifully. But it's nature, and you can't help it. Go and
+marry this Flossy girl, and commit mental suicide if you must."
+
+"Sympathetic!"
+
+So he married her five years ago, and became her man-servant.
+
+When they had been married about a year, people said that Bronson was
+working himself to death. I, being an Old Maid, and liking to meddle with
+other people's business, told him that I thought he ought to take a
+vacation. He said he couldn't afford it. I was honestly surprised at that,
+because, while he was not rich, he was extremely well-to-do, with a
+rapidly increasing law practice. And then Flossy's father had been very
+generous when she married him. He was considerate enough to reply to my
+look.
+
+"You know I married a rich girl. Flossy's money is her own. She has saved
+it--I wished her to save it, I _wished_ it--and I am doing my level best
+to support her as nearly as possible in the way in which she has been
+accustomed to live. She ought to have an easier time, poor child."
+
+So he did not take a vacation, and the summer was very hot, and when
+Flossy came home from Rye she found him wretchedly ill, and discovered
+that he had had a trained nurse for two weeks before he let her know
+anything about it. Then people pitied Flossy for having her summer
+interrupted, and Flossy felt that it was a shame; but she very willingly
+sat and fanned Bronson for as much as an hour every day and answered
+questions languidly and was pale, and people sent her flowers and were
+extremely sorry for her.
+
+When Bronson became well enough to go away, as his doctors ordered, for a
+complete rest, Rachel English happened to go on the same train with them,
+and the next day I received a letter, or rather an envelope, from her,
+with this single sentence enclosed: "And if she didn't make him hold her
+in his arms in broad daylight every step of the way, because the train
+jarred her back!"
+
+(Tabby, there is no use in talking. I must stop and pull your ears. Come
+here and let Missis be really rough with you for a minute.)
+
+There are some women who prefer a valet to a husband; who think that the
+more menial are his services in public, the more apparent is his devotion.
+It is a Roman-chariot-wheel idea, which degrades both the man and the
+woman in the eyes of the spectators. I wrote to Rachel, and said in the
+letter, "One horse in the span always does most of the pulling, you know,
+especially uphill." And Rachel wrote back, "Wouldn't I just like to drive
+this pair, though!"
+
+Bronson had his ideals before he was married, as most men have, concerning
+the kind of a home he hoped for. He always said that it was not so much
+what your home was, as how it was. He believed that a home consisted more
+in the feelings and aims of its inmates than in rugs and jardinieres. He
+said to me once, "The oneness of two people could make a home in Sahara."
+
+He was ambitious, too, feeling within himself that power which makes
+orators and statesmen, but needing the approval and encouragement of some
+one who also realized his capabilities, to enable him to do his best. He
+himself was the one who was sympathetic, if he had only known it. His
+nature responded with the utmost readiness to whatever appealed to him
+from the side of right or justice.
+
+He had noble hopes in many directions, hopes which inspired me to believe
+in his truth and goodness, aside from his capabilities for achieving
+greatness. His eagle sight, which read through other men's shams and
+pretences; his moral sense, which bade him shun even the appearance of
+evil, not only permitted, but urged him, seemingly, into this marriage
+with Flossy, by which he effectually cut himself off from his dearest
+aspirations. One by one I have seen him relinquish them, holding to them
+lovingly to the last. The hours at home, which he intended to give to
+study and research, have been sacrificed to the petting and nursing of a
+perfectly well woman, who demanded it of him. His home life, where he had
+dreamed of a congenial atmosphere, where the centripetal force should be
+the love of wife and children, merged into frequent journeys for
+Flossy--who would have been happy if she never had been obliged to stay in
+one place over a week--and a shifting of their one child Rachel into the
+care of nurses, because Flossy fretted at the care of her and demanded all
+of Bronson's time for herself.
+
+Thus was Bronson's life being twisted and bent from its natural course.
+Was it a weakness in him? To be sure he might have shown his strength by
+breaking loose from family ties, and, hardening his heart to his wife's
+plaints, have carried out his ambitions with some degree of success. He
+did attempt this, nor did he fail in his career. He was called a fairly
+successful man. I dare say the majority of people never knew that he was
+created for grander things. But something was sapping his energy at the
+fountain-head. Was he realizing that he had helped to shatter his ideals
+with his own hand?
+
+I never am so well satisfied with my lot of single-blessedness as when I
+contemplate the sort of wife Flossy makes. That may sound arrogant, but
+this is a secret session of human nature, when arrogance and all
+native-born sins are permissible.
+
+Flossy is perfectly unconscious of the spectacle she presents to the
+world. Ah, me! I know it is said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." I
+might have made him just such a wife, I suppose. O heavens! no, I
+shouldn't. Tabby, that is making humility go a little too far.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+                             WOMEN AS LOVERS
+
+                "In every clime and country
+                   There lives a Man of Pain,
+                 Whose nerves, like chords of lightning,
+                   Bring fire into his brain:
+                 To him a whisper is a wound,
+                   A look or sneer, a blow;
+                 More pangs he feels in years or months
+                   Than dunce-throng'd ages know."
+
+
+I have had such a curious experience. I have been confided in, twice in
+one day. Two more bits out of other lives have been given to me, and it is
+astonishing to see how well they piece into mine.
+
+To begin with, Rachel English came in early. There is something
+particularly auspicious about Rachel. She fits me like a glove. She never
+jars nor grates. When she is here, I am comfortable; when she is gone, I
+miss something. If I see a fine painting, or hear magnificent music, I
+think of Rachel before any other thought comes into my mind. One
+involuntarily associates her with anything wonderfully fine in art or
+literature, with the perfect assurance that she will be sympathetic and
+appreciative. She understands the deep, inarticulate emotions in the
+kindred way you have a right to expect of your lover, and which you are
+oftenest disappointed in, if you do expect it of him. If I were a man, I
+should be in love with Rachel.
+
+Her sensitiveness through every available channel makes her of no use to
+general society. Blundering people tread on her; malicious ones tear her
+to pieces. Rachel ought to be caged, and only approached by clever people
+who have brains enough to appreciate her. I should like to be her keeper.
+But her organization is too closely allied to that of genius to be happy,
+unless with certain environments which it is too good to believe will ever
+surround her. She is so clever that she is perfectly helpless. If you knew
+her, this would not be a paradox. Possibly it isn't anyway.
+
+I do not say that Rachel is perfect. She would be desperately
+uncomfortable as a friend if she were. Her failings are those belonging to
+a frank, impulsive, generous nature, which I myself find it easy to
+forgive. Her gravest fault is a witty tongue. That which many people would
+give years of their lives to possess is what she has shed the most tears
+over and which she most liberally detests in herself. She calls it her
+private demon, and says she knows that one of the devils, in the woman who
+was possessed of seven, was the devil of wit.
+
+Wit is a weapon of defence, and was no more intended to be an attribute of
+woman than is a knowledge of fire-arms or a fondness for mice. A witty
+woman is an anomaly, fit only for literary circles and to be admired at a
+distance.
+
+It is of no use to advise Rachel to curb her tongue. So tender-hearted
+that the sight of an animal in pain makes her faint; so humble-minded that
+she cannot bear to receive an apology, but, no matter what has been the
+offence, cuts it off short and hastens to accept it before it is uttered,
+with the generous assurance that she, too, has been to blame; yet she
+wounds cruelly, but unconsciously, with her tongue, which cleaves like a
+knife, and holds up your dearest, most private foibles on stilettos of wit
+for the public to mock at. Not that she is personal in her allusions, but
+her thorough knowledge of the philosophy of human nature and the deep,
+secret springs of human action lead her to witty, satirical
+generalizations, which are so painfully true that each one of her hearers
+goes home hugging a personal affront, while poor Rachel never dreams of
+lacerated feelings until she meets averted faces or hears a whisper of
+her heinous sin. This grieves her wofully, but leaves her with no mode of
+redress, for who dare offer balm to wounded vanity? I believe her when she
+says she "never wilfully planted a thorn in any human breast."
+
+She scarcely had entered before I saw that she had something on her mind.
+And it was not long before she began to confide, but in an impersonal way.
+
+There is something which makes you hold your breath before you enter the
+inner nature of some one who has extraordinary depth. You feel as if you
+were going to find something different and interesting, and possibly
+difficult or explosive. It is dark, too, yet you feel impelled to enter.
+It is like going into a cave.
+
+Most people are afraid of Rachel. Sometimes I am. But it is the alluring,
+hysterical fear which makes a child say, "Scare me again."
+
+Imagine such a girl in love. Rachel is in love. She would not say with
+whom--naturally. At least, naturally for Rachel. I felt rather helpless,
+but as I knew that all she wanted was an intelligent sympathizer, not
+verbal assistance, I was willing to blunder a little. I knew she would
+speedily set me right.
+
+"You are too clever to marry," I said at a hazard.
+
+"That is one of the most popular of fallacies," she answered me
+crushingly. "Why can't clever women marry, and make just as good wives as
+the others? Why can't a woman bend her cleverness to see that her house is
+in order, and her dinners well cooked, and buttons sewed on, as well as
+to discuss new books and keep pace with her husband intellectually? Do you
+suppose because I know Greek that I cannot be in love? Do you suppose
+because I went through higher mathematics that I never pressed a flower he
+gave me? Do you imagine that Biology kills blushing in a woman? Do you
+think that Philosophy keeps me from crying myself to sleep when I think he
+doesn't care for me, or growing idiotically glad when he tells me he does?
+What rubbish people write upon this subject! Even Pope proved that he was
+only a man when he said,
+
+    "'Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
+      And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.'
+
+"Did you ever read such foolishness?"
+
+"Often, my dear, often. But console yourself. A wiser than Pope says, 'The
+learned eye is still the loving one.'"
+
+"Browning, of course. I ought not to be surprised that the prince of poets
+should be clever enough to know that. It is from his own experience. 'Who
+writes to himself, writes to an eternal public.' You see, Ruth, men can't
+help looking at the question from the other side, because they form the
+other side. You might cram a woman's head with all the wisdom of the ages,
+and while it would frighten every man who came near her into hysterics, it
+wouldn't keep her from going down abjectly before some man who had sense
+enough to know that higher education does not rob a woman of her
+womanliness. Depend upon it, Ruth, when it does, she would have been
+unwomanly and masculine if she hadn't been able to read. And it is the man
+who marries a woman of brains who is going to get the most out of this
+life."
+
+"Men don't want clever wives," I said feebly.
+
+"Clever men don't. Why is it that all the brightest men we know have
+selected girls who looked pretty and have coddled them? Look at Bronson
+and Flossy. That man is lonesome, I tell you, Ruth. He actually hungers
+and thirsts for his intellectual and moral affinity, and yet even he did
+not have the sense--the astuteness--to select a wife who would have stood
+at his side, instead of one who lay in a wad at his feet. Oh, the
+bungling marriages that we see! I believe one reason is that like seldom
+marries like. For my part I do not believe in the marriage of opposites.
+Look at Robert Browning and his wife. That is my ideal marriage. Their art
+and brains were married, as well as their hands and hearts. It is pure
+music to think of it. And, to me, the most pathetic poem in the English
+language is Browning's 'Andrea del Sarto.'"
+
+"Isn't it strange to see the kind of men who love clever women like you?
+You never could have brought yourself to marry any of them, expecting to
+find them congenial. They would have admired you in dumb silence, until
+they grew tired of feeling your superiority; after that--what?"
+
+"The deluge, I suppose. Ruth, I don't see how a woman with any
+self-respect can marry until she meets her master. That is high treason,
+isn't it? But it is one of those sentient bits of truth which we never
+mention in society. The man I marry must have a stronger will and a
+greater brain than I have, or I should rule him. I'll never marry until I
+find a man who knows more than I do. Yet, as to these other men who have
+loved me--you know what a tender place a woman has in her heart for the
+men who have wanted to marry her. My intellect repudiated, but my heart
+cherishes them still. Odd things, hearts. Sometimes I wish we didn't have
+any when they ache so. I feel like disagreeing with all the poets to-day,
+because they will not say what I believe. Do you remember this, from
+Beaumont and Fletcher,
+
+    "'Of all the paths that lead to woman's love
+     Pity's the straightest'?
+
+"Men are fond of saying that, I notice, but I don't think we women bear
+out the truth. I couldn't love a man I pitied. I could love one I was
+proud of, or afraid of, but one I pitied? Never. It is more true to say
+it of men. I believe plenty of girls obtain husbands by virtue of their
+weakness, their loneliness, their helplessness, their--anything which
+makes a man pity them. Pleasant thought, isn't it, for a woman who loves
+her own sex and wishes it held its head up better! You may say that it is
+this sort who receive more of the attentions that women love, chivalry
+and tenderness and devotion. But if all or any of these were inspired by
+pity, I'd rather not have them. I would rather a man would be rough and
+brusque with me, if he loved me heroically, than to see him fling his coat
+in the mud for me to step on, because he pitied my weakness. Do you know,
+Ruth, I think men are a good deal more human than women. You can work them
+out by algebra (for they never have more than one unknown quantity, and in
+the woman problem there would be more _x_'s than anything else), and you
+can go by rules and get the answer. But nothing ever calculated or evolved
+can get the final answer to one woman--though they do say she is fond of
+the last word! We understand ourselves intuitively, and we understand men
+by study, yet we are made the receivers, not the givers; the chosen, not
+the choosers. It really is an absurd dispensation when you view it apart
+from sentiment, yet I, for one, would not have it changed. I should not
+mind being Cupid for a while, though, and giving him a few ideas in the
+mating line.
+
+"I think women are often misjudged. Men seem to think that all we want is
+to be loved. Now, it isn't all that I want. If I had to choose between
+being loved by a man--_the_ man, let us say--and not loving him at all,
+or loving him very dearly and not being loved by him, I would choose the
+latter, for I think that more happiness comes from loving than from being
+loved."
+
+"Why _don't_ you marry somebody?" I asked in an agony of entreaty, for
+fear all of this would be wasted on me, an Old Maid, rather than upon some
+man. She shook her head.
+
+"It needs a compelling, not a persuasive, power to win a woman. No man who
+takes me like this," closing her thumb and forefinger as if holding a
+butterfly, "can have me. The one who dares to take me like this,"
+clenching her hand, "will get me. But he will not come."
+
+Then I walked with her to the door, and she bent over me, and whispered
+something about my being a "blessed comfort" to her, and went away. Ah,
+Tabby, my dear, it is worth while being an Old Maid to be a blessed
+comfort to anybody. But I would just like to ask you, as a cat of
+intelligence, what in the world I did for her!
+
+Imagine some man making that girl care for him so much. For, of course,
+it is somebody. A girl does not say such things about the abstract man.
+
+I was in an uplifted state of mind all day, as I am always after a talk
+with Rachel, and when Percival came in the evening, I felt that I could
+deluge him with my gathered sentiment, and he would be receptive. Besides,
+Percival has a positive genius for understanding. I did not know it,
+however, this morning. I seldom know as much in the morning as I do at
+night.
+
+Percival approves of sentiment. He said once that a life which had
+principle and sentiment needed little else, for principle was to stand
+upon, and sentiment was to beautify with. He said this after I had told
+him rather apologetically that I wished there was more sentiment in the
+world, because I liked it. Is it strange that I like Percival? You can't
+help admiring people who approve of you.
+
+Percival is a genius. People in general do not recognize this fact. He is
+an inarticulate genius. Men feel that he is in some occult way different
+from them, yet they do not know just how. Nor will they ever take the
+trouble to study out a problem in human nature, either in man or woman,
+unless they are philosophers.
+
+Women care for Percival in proportion to their intuitions. You must
+comprehend him synthetically. You cannot dissect him. With generous
+appreciation and sympathetic encouragement, Percival's genius would become
+articulate. To discover it he must needs marry--but he must wait for the
+hundredth woman. This, of course, he will not do. If he can find a Flossy,
+he will go down on his knees to her, when she ought to be on hers to him;
+metaphorical knees, in this case.
+
+I am very much afraid he has found her. He is in love. You can always tell
+when a man is in love, Tabby, especially if he is not the lovering kind
+and has never been troubled in that way before. The best kind of love has
+to be so intuitive that it often is grandly, heroically awkward. Depend
+upon it, Tabby, a man who is dainty and pretty and unspeakably smooth when
+he makes love to you, has had altogether too much practice.
+
+Percival knows that he is in love--that is one great step in the right
+direction. But he is in that first partly alarmed, partly curious frame of
+mind that a man would be in who touched his broken arm for the first time
+to see how much it hurt. Whoever she is, he loves her deeply and thinks
+she never can care for him. He did not tell me this. If he thought that I
+knew it, he would wonder how in the world I found it out. Women are born
+lovers. They have to do the bulk of the loving all through the world. I
+told Percival so. At first he seemed surprised; then he said that it was
+true. I believe some men could go through life without loving anybody on
+earth. But the woman never lived who could do it. A woman must love
+something--even if she hasn't anything better to love than a pug-dog or
+herself.
+
+"Why aren't women the choosers?" said Percival seriously. The same
+question twice in one day, Tabby. "Whenever I think of understanding the
+question of love, I wish for a woman's intuitions. Women know so much
+about it. They absorb the whole question at a glance. But, with so many
+different kinds of women, how is a man to know anything?"
+
+I always liked Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when
+he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and
+throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly
+towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to
+say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices
+and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to
+understand them by intuition as women understand men. "The masculine
+mind," he said, "is but ill-attuned to the subtle harmonies of the
+feminine heart."
+
+I was secretly very much pleased at this remark, but I made myself answer
+as became an Old Maid, just to make him continue without
+self-consciousness. If I had blushed and thanked him, he would have gone
+home.
+
+"They set these things down to the natural curiousness and contrariness
+of women, and often despise what they cannot comprehend."
+
+He answered me with the heightened consciousness and slight irritation of
+a man who has been in that fault, but has seen and mended it.
+
+"All men do not. Still, how can they help it at times?"
+
+Then, Tabby, I went a-sailing. I launched out on my favorite theme.
+
+"Men must needs study women. Often the terror with which some men regard
+these--to us--perfectly transparent complexities, could be avoided if they
+would analyze the cause with but half the patience they display in the
+case of an ailing trotter. But no; either they edge carefully away from
+such dangers as they previously have experienced, or, if they blunder into
+new ones, they give the woman a sealskin and trust to time to heal the
+breach."
+
+I thought of the Asburys when I said that. But Percival ruminated upon it,
+as if it touched his own case. A very good thing about Percival is that
+he does not think he knows everything. It encourages me to believe in his
+genius. To rouse him from a brown-study over this Flossy girl, I said
+rather recklessly,
+
+"I should like to be a man for a while, in order to make love to two or
+three women. I would do it in a way which should not shock them with its
+coarseness or starve them with its poverty. As it is now, most women deny
+themselves the expression of the best part of their love, because they
+know it will be either a puzzle or a terror to their lovers."
+
+Percival was vitally interested at once.
+
+"Is that really so?" he asked. "Do you suppose any of them withhold
+anything from such a fear?" His face was so uplifted that I plunged on,
+thoroughly in the dark, but, like Barkis, "willin'." If I could be of use
+to him in an emergency, I was only too happy.
+
+"Men never realize the height of the pedestal where women in love place
+them, nor do they know with how many perfections they are invested nor how
+religiously women keep themselves deceived on the subject. They cannot
+comprehend the succession of little shocks which is caused by the real man
+coming in contact with the ideal. And if they did understand, they would
+think that such mere trifles should not affect the genuine article of
+love, and that women simply should overlook foibles, and go on loving the
+damaged article just as blindly as before. But what man could view his
+favorite marble tumbling from its pedestal continually, and losing first a
+finger, then an arm, then a nose, and would go on setting it up each time,
+admiring and reverencing in the mutilated remains the perfect creation
+which first enraptured him? He wouldn't take the trouble to fill up the
+nicks and glue on the lost fingers as women do to their idols. He wouldn't
+even try to love it as he used to do. When it began to look too battered
+up, he would say, 'Here, put this thing in the cellar and let's get it out
+of the way.'"
+
+Percival listened with specific interest, and admitted its truth with a
+fair-mindedness surprising even in him.
+
+"Do you suppose it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a
+woman?" he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure,
+towards that empty-headed sweetheart of his.
+
+"I really do not know," I said honestly. "I think if he tried with all his
+might he could."
+
+"Do you think--you know me better than any one else does--do you think
+_I_ could, if I gave my whole mind to it?"
+
+"You, if anybody." I answered him with the occasional absolute
+truthfulness which occurs between a man and a woman when they are
+completely lifted out of themselves. Something more than mere pleasure
+shone in his eyes. It was as if I had reached his soul.
+
+"If no man ever has been all that a woman in love really believes him, the
+best a man could do would be to take care that she never found out her
+mistake," he said slowly.
+
+"Exactly," I said; "you are getting on. It is only another way of making
+yourself live up to her ideal of you."
+
+"Supposing after all, that the woman I love will have none of me," he
+said, unconsciously slipping from the third person to the first.
+
+"I wouldn't admit even the possibility if I were a man. I would besiege
+the fortress. I would sit on her front doorstep until she gave in. Don't
+ask her to have you. Tell her you are going to have her whether or no," I
+cried, thinking of Rachel's words. He looked so encouraged that I am
+afraid I have sent him post-haste to the Flossy girl, and gotten him into
+life-long trouble. But I had gone too far. I quite hurried, in my
+accidental endeavor to shipwreck him.
+
+"Men do not understand these things, because they will not give time
+enough to them. Real love-making requires the patience, the tenderness,
+the sympathy which women alone possess in the highest degree. Possibly she
+loves you deeply, only you do not believe it. Gauged by a woman's love,
+many men love, marry, and die, without even approximating the real grand
+passion themselves, or comprehending that which they have inspired, for
+no one but a woman can fathom a woman's love."
+
+I couldn't help going on after I started, for he was thinking of the other
+woman, and looking at me in a way that would have made my heart turn over,
+if I hadn't been an Old Maid, and known that his look was not for me.
+
+Then he ground my rings into my hand until I nearly shrieked with the
+pain, and said, "God bless you!" very hoarsely, and dashed out of the
+house before I could pull myself together. _I_ say so too. God bless me,
+what have I done? I've sent him straight to that Flossy girl. I feel it.
+I've smoothed out something between them. I have accidentally made him
+articulate, and articulation in such a man as Percival is overpowering. He
+is a murdered man, and mine is the hand that slew him.
+
+Tabby, old maids are a public nuisance, not to say dangerous. They ought
+to be suppressed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I wonder if he will burst in upon her with that look upon his face!
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+                        THE HEART OF A COQUETTE
+
+             "Strange, that a film of smoke can blot a star!"
+
+
+He did. And the woman was--Rachel. Tabby, I never was better pleased with
+myself in my life. I love old maids. I think that whenever they are
+accidental they are perfectly lovely. But _what_ a risk I ran!
+
+I did not know a thing about it until I received their wedding-cards. It
+was just like Rachel not to tell me, and it was insufferably stupid in me
+not to use the few wits I am possessed of, and see how matters stood. But
+my fears and tremors were that Frankie Taliaferro would get him, so I have
+watched her all this time. Percival laughed almost scornfully when I told
+him this, and said I had been barking up the wrong tree. I retaliated by
+saying that if they had been ordinary lovers, I never could have made
+such a mistake, and they took it as a great compliment. When I consider
+the general run of engaged people, I am inclined to agree with them.
+Everybody seems to think they are making an experiment of marriage,
+because they are so much alike. But, then, doesn't every one who marries
+at all, Jew or Gentile, black or white, bond or free, make an experiment?
+I myself have no fear as to how the Percival experiment will turn out.
+Rachel says that they are so similar in all their tastes and ideals that
+if she were a man she would be Percival, and if he were a woman he would
+be Rachel. "Then you still would have a chance to marry each other," I
+said frivolously. But she assented with a depth of feeling which ignored
+my feeble attempt to be cheerful. "Yet," she continued, "there is a
+subtle, alluring difference in our thoughts; just enough to add piquancy,
+not irritation, to a discussion. I do not love white, and he does not love
+black, as so many husbands and wives do. We both love gray; different
+tones of gray, but still gray. It is very restful." The Percivals are not
+only restful to themselves, but to others. They used to be in the highly
+irritable, nervous state of those whose sensitive organisms are a little
+too fine for this world. I never objected to it myself, but I have said
+before that Rachel was of no use to ordinary society, and Percival was
+little better. When people failed to understand her, she retired into
+herself with a dignity which was mistaken for ill-temper. She is too
+refined and high-minded to defend herself against the "slings and arrows
+of outrageous" people, although if she would, she could exterminate them
+with her wit. And some could so easily be spared. It seems, too, that she
+is great enough to be a target, so she is under fire continually. This,
+while it causes her exquisite suffering, is from no fault of her own--save
+the unforgivable one of being original. "A frog spat at a glow-worm. 'Why
+do you spit at me?' said the glow-worm. 'Why do you shine so?' said the
+frog." And as to Percival--the man I used to know was Percival in embryo.
+He is maturing now, and is radiant in Rachel's sympathetic comprehension
+of him. He refers to the time before he knew her as his "protoplasmic
+state," as indeed it was. But there are a good many of us who would be
+willing to remain protoplasm all our lives to possess a tithe of his
+genius--you and I among the number, Tabby. You needn't look at me so
+reproachfully out of your old-gold eyes. You know you would.
+
+You have seen Sallie Cox, haven't you? Then you know how it jarred my
+nerves to have her rush in upon me when my mind was full of the Percivals.
+
+Sallie has flirted joyously through life thus far, and has appeared to
+have about as little heart as any girl I ever knew. Sallie is the _sauce
+piquante_ in one's life--absolutely necessary at times to make things
+taste at all, but a little of her goes a long way. At least so I thought
+until to-day.
+
+"I've got something to tell you, Ruth," she said, "so come with me, and we
+will take a little drive before going to cooking-school."
+
+I went, knowing, of course, that she wanted to confide something about
+some of her lovers.
+
+"I am going to be married," she announced coldly. "It's Payson Osborne
+this time, and I'm really going to see the thing through. It's rather a
+joke on me, because it commenced this way. I was sick of lovers, and some
+of the last had been so unpleasant, not to say rude, when I threw them
+over, that I thought I would take a vacation. So when I met Payson, I
+said, 'What do you say to a Platonic friendship?' It sounds harmless, you
+know, Ruth, and he, not knowing me at all, assented. If he had been a man
+who knew of my checkered career, he would have refused, suspecting, of
+course, that I was going to flirt with him under a new name. But, as I was
+serious this time, I knew it was all right. So we began. I suppose you
+know he is enormously rich, besides being so handsome, and there will not
+be a girl in town who won't say I raised heaven and earth to get him; but
+I don't mind telling you, Ruth--because you are such an old dear, and
+never are bothered with lovers(!); besides, it will do me good to tell it,
+and I know you will never betray me--that I never cared for any man on
+earth except Winston Percival. You needn't jump, and look as though the
+house was on fire. It's the solemn truth, and I never dreamed that he
+cared for Rachel until he married her. Mind you, he never pretended to
+love me. It is every bit one-sided, and I don't care if it is. I am glad
+that a frivolous, shallow-minded, rattle-brained thing like me had sense
+enough to fall in love with the most glorious man that ever came into her
+life. I shouldn't have made him half as good a wife as Rachel does--I
+really feel as if they were made for each other--but he would have made a
+woman of me. I'm honestly glad he is so happy, and things are much more
+suitable as they are, for Payson is a thorough-going society man, and
+doesn't ask much in a wife or he wouldn't have me, and he doesn't expect
+much from a wife or he couldn't get me.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know that a girl who makes a business of wearing scalps
+at her belt never stands a bit of a chance with a man she really loves,
+for she is afraid to practise on him the wiles which she knows from
+experience have been successful with scores of others, because she feels
+that he will see through them, and scorn her as she scorns herself in his
+presence. She loses her courage, she loses control of herself, and, being
+used to depend on 'business,' as actors say, to carry out her role
+successfully, she finds that she is only reading her lines, and reading
+them very badly too. If you could have seen me with Percival, you would
+know what I mean. I was dull, uninteresting, poky--no more the Sallie Cox
+that other men know than I am you. He absorbed my personality. I didn't
+care for myself or how I appeared. I only wanted him to shine and be his
+natural, brilliant self. I never could have helped him in his work. The
+most I could have hoped to do would have been not to hinder him. I would
+have been the gainer--it would have been the act of a home missionary for
+him to marry me."
+
+She laughed drearily.
+
+"Isn't it horribly immoral in me to sit here and talk in this way about a
+married man? It's a wonder it doesn't turn the color of the cushions. If
+you hear of my having the brougham relined, Ruth, you will know why.
+Ruth, I am so miserable at times it seems to me that I shall die. I'd love
+to cry this minute--cry just as hard as I could, and scream, and beat my
+head against something hard--how do you do, Mrs. Asbury?--but instead, I
+have to bow from the windows to people, and remember that I am supposed to
+be the complaisant bride-elect of the catch of the season. It is a
+judgment on me, Ruth, to find that I have a heart, when I have always gone
+on the principle that nobody had any. Yes--how-de-do, Miss Culpepper?
+excuse me a minute, Ruth, while I hate that girl. What has she done to me?
+Oh, nothing to speak of--she only had the bad taste to fall in love with
+the man I am going to marry. Writes him notes all the time, making love to
+him, which he promptly shows to me--oh, we are not very honorable, or very
+upright, or very anything good in the Osborne matrimonial arrangement.
+Anybody but you would hate me for all this I've told you, but I know you
+are pitying me with all your soul, because you know the empty-headed
+Sallie Cox carries with her a very sore heart, and that it will take more
+than Payson Osborne has got to give to heal it. I call him Pay sometimes,
+but he hates it. I only do it when I think how much he does pay for a very
+bad bargain. But he doesn't care, so why should I?
+
+"It really does seem odd, when I look back on it, to see how easy it was
+to get him, when all the time I was perfectly indifferent to him, and
+received his attentions on the Platonic basis to keep him from making love
+to me. I really think I never had any one to care for me in so exactly the
+way I like, and to be so easy in his demands, and to think me so
+altogether perfect and charming, no matter what I do. It was because I was
+absolutely indifferent to him. I never cared when he came. I never cared
+when he went. Other lovers fussed and quarrelled and were jealous and
+disagreeable when I flirted with other men, but Payson never cared. He
+didn't tease me, you know. And whenever he said anything, I could look
+innocent and say, 'Is that Platonic friendship?' So he would have to
+subside. I know he thought some of my indifference was assumed, for when
+he told me about Miss Culpepper he thought I would be vexed. I _was_
+vexed, but I had presence of mind not to show it. I only laughed and made
+no comment at all--asked him what time it was, I believe. Then when he
+looked so disappointed and sulky, I knew I was right, and I patted Sallie
+Cox on the head for being so clever--so clever as not to care, chiefly.
+There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you cannot do with a man who loves
+you, if you don't care a speck for him. And the luxury of perfect
+indifference! Emotions are awfully wearing, Ruth. I wonder that these
+emotional women like Rachel get on at all. I should think they would die
+of the strain. Men are always deadly afraid of such women. I believe
+Payson wouldn't stop running till he got to California if I should burst
+into tears and not be able to tell him instantly just exactly where my
+neuralgia had jumped to. No unknown waverings and quaverings of the heart
+for my good Osborne. There goes Alice Asbury again. I am dying to tell you
+something. You know why she hates me, and understand why she treats me so
+abominably? Well, Asbury gave her the same engagement ring he gave me, and
+she doesn't know it. Rich, isn't it? Here we are at the cooking-school. I
+am so glad I can slam a carriage-door without being rude. It is such a
+relief to one's overcharged feelings."
+
+Tabby, dear, if your head ever spun round and round at some of the
+confidences I have bestowed upon you, I can sympathize with you, for, as I
+went into that class, my feelings were so wrenched and twisted that I was
+as limp as cooked macaroni. You will excuse the simile, but that was one
+of the articles at cooking-school to-day, and when the teacher took it up
+on a fork, it did express my state of mind so exquisitely that I cannot
+forbear to use it.
+
+Sallie Cox! Well, I am amazed. Who would think that that bright, saucy,
+clever little flirt, who rides on the crest of the wave always, could have
+such a heart history? And Percival of all men! I wonder what he would say
+if he knew. I don't know what to think about her marrying Payson Osborne.
+The last thing she whispered to me as we came out of cooking-school was,
+"Don't be too sorry for me because I am going to marry him. Believe me, it
+is the very best thing that could happen to me."
+
+I am very fond of the girl to-night. What a pity it is that everybody does
+not know her as she really is! No one understands her, and she has flirted
+so outrageously with most of the men that the girls' friendship for her is
+very hollow. A few, of whom Alice Asbury is one, dare to show this quite
+plainly, and of course Sallie doesn't like it. She pretends not to care
+for women's friendship, but she does. She would love to be friendly with
+all the girls, but they remember the misery she has made them suffer, and
+won't have it.
+
+Still, there is no doubt that she is marrying the man most of them want,
+so that again she triumphs. But, unless I am much mistaken, even as Mrs.
+Payson Osborne it will take her a long time to recover her place with the
+women which she has lost by having so many of their sweethearts and
+brothers in love with her.
+
+Ah, Tabby, what a deal of secret misery there is in the world! Everybody
+will envy Sallie Cox and think that she is the luckiest girl, and Sallie
+will smile and pretend--for what other course is left to her, and who can
+blame women who pretend under such circumstances? Perhaps there are
+reasons just as good for many other pretenders in this world. Who knows?
+We would be gentler if we knew more.
+
+There will be other sore hearts besides Sallie's at her wedding. I had
+heard before that Miss Culpepper was quite desperate over Osborne, but, as
+she was a girl whom everybody thought a lady, I had no idea that she had
+gone so far as Sallie says. Osborne probably didn't object to being made
+love to. A man of his stamp would not be over-refined. Strange, now,
+Sallie does not love Osborne herself, but she promptly hates every other
+girl who dares to do it. Aren't girls queer?
+
+Then there are a score of men who will gnash their teeth for Sallie--so
+many men love these Sallie Coxes.
+
+Frankie Taliaferro, the Kentucky beauty, who is staying with her this
+winter, tells me that Sallie has had several dreadful scenes with
+discarded suitors--that one said he would forbid the banns, and another
+threatened to shoot himself if she really married Osborne.
+
+I wonder how many marriages there really are where both are perfectly free
+to marry. I mean, no secret entanglements on either side, no other man
+wanting the bride, no girl bitterly jealous of her. I never heard of
+one--not among the people _I_ know, at least.
+
+Oh, Tabby, think of all the fusses people keep out of who promptly settle
+down at the appointed time and become peaceful old maids. How sensible we
+were, Tabby, you and Missis.
+
+But doesn't it seem to you that people marry from very mixed motives? I
+used to have an idea--when I was painfully young, of course--that they
+married because they were so fortunate as to fall in love with each other.
+Are you quite sure that foolish notion is out of your head too?
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+                  THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD
+
+     "Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?... To be great is to be
+     misunderstood."
+
+
+I have been away since early last summer, and consequently never had seen
+Flossy's new baby until the newness had worn off, and it had arrived at
+the dignity of a backbone, and had left its wobbly period far behind. I am
+in mortal terror of a very little baby. It feels so much like a sponge,
+yet lacks the sponge's recuperative qualities. I am always afraid if I
+dent it the dents will stay in. You know they don't in a sponge.
+
+As soon as I came home, of course I went to see Flossy's baby, and was
+very much disconcerted to discover that she had named it for me. I was
+afraid, I remember, that she would want to name the first girl for me, but
+she did not. She named her after Rachel. I had an uncomfortable idea,
+however, that my name had been discussed and vetoed, by either Flossy or
+Bronson. But this time the baby is named Ruth, and I found that it was all
+Flossy's doing.
+
+I was irritated without knowing why. I didn't want anybody to know it
+though, and so I was vexed when Bronson said to me, "I couldn't help it,
+Ruth." There was no use in pretending not to understand. I could with some
+men, but not with Bronson. He is too magnificently honest himself, and
+uplifts me by expecting me to be equally so. Nevertheless I failed him in
+one particular, for I answered him in my loftiest manner, "I am not at all
+displeased. It is a great compliment, I am sure."
+
+There is nothing so uncivil at times as to be cuttingly polite. What I
+said wasn't so at all. But a woman is obliged to defend herself from a man
+who reads her like an open book.
+
+Flossy does not like children, and poor little Rachel never has had a life
+of roses. Flossy says children are such a care and require so much
+attention.
+
+"Rachel was all that I could attend to, and here all winter I have had
+another one on my hands to keep me at home, and make me lose sleep, and
+grow old before my time. I don't see why such burdens have to be put upon
+people. Children are too thick in this world any way."
+
+She fretted on in this strain for some time, until Bronson looked up and
+said,
+
+"Don't, Flossy. You don't mean what you say. Do tell her the little thing
+is welcome."
+
+"I do mean what I say," answered Flossy.
+
+Then, as Bronson left the room abruptly, Flossy said,
+
+"And I was determined to name her after you. Bronson didn't want me to. He
+said you wouldn't thank me for it, but I told him that Rachel Percival was
+quite delighted with her namesake."
+
+I hid my indignantly smarting eyes in the folds of the baby's dress, as I
+held her up before my face, and made her laugh at the flowers in my hat.
+Flossy thought I was not listening to her with sufficient interest; so she
+got up and crossed the room with that little stumble of hers, which used
+to be so taking with the men when she was a girl, and took Ruth away from
+me.
+
+There was a great contrast between the two children. Rachel Herrick is a
+shy child, with a delicate, refined face, lighted by wonderful gray eyes
+like Bronson's. I do not understand her. She seems afraid of me, and I
+confess I am equally afraid of her. Even Rachel Percival does not get on
+with her very well, although she has bravely tried. The child spends most
+of her time in the library, devouring all the books she can lay her hands
+on. Little Ruth is a round, soft, fluffy baby, all dimples and smiles and
+good-nature, willing to roll or crawl into anybody's lap or affections. A
+very good baby to exhibit, for strangers delight in her, and pet her just
+as people always have petted Flossy. Rachel stands mutely watching all
+such demonstrations, her pale face rigid with some emotion, and her eyes
+brilliant and hard. She is not a child one would dare take liberties with.
+No one ever pets her. Flossy complains continually of her to visitors and
+to Bronson, so that Bronson has gotten into the way of reproving her
+mechanically whenever his eye rests upon her. Her very presence, always
+silent, always inwardly critical, seems to irritate her parents. She was
+not doing a thing, but sitting sedately, with a heavy book on her lap,
+watching the baby, with that curious expression on her face; but Flossy
+couldn't let her alone.
+
+"Baby loves her mother, doesn't she? She is not like naughty sister
+Rachel, who won't do anything but read, and never loves anybody but
+herself. Sister says bad things to poor sick mamma, and mamma can't love
+her, can she? But mamma loves her pretty, sweet baby, so she does."
+
+Rachel glanced at me with a hunted look in her eyes which wrung my heart.
+But, before I could think, she slid down and the big book fell with a
+crash to the floor. She ran towards the baby with a wicked look on her
+small face, and the baby leaped and held out its hands, but Rachel
+clenched her teeth, and slapped the outstretched hand as she rushed past
+her and out of the room.
+
+Poor little Ruth looked at the red place on her hand a minute, then her
+lip quivered, and she began to cry pitifully.
+
+I instinctively looked to see Flossy gather her up to comfort her. It is
+so easy to dry a child's tears with a little love. But she rang for the
+nurse and fretfully exclaimed,
+
+"Isn't that just like her! I declare I can't see why a child of mine
+should have such a wicked temper. Here, Simpson, take this young nuisance
+and stop her crying. Oh, poor little me! Ruth, I'm thankful that you have
+no children to wear your life out."
+
+I dryly remarked that I too considered it rather a cause for gratitude,
+and came away.
+
+Poor little Rachel Herrick! Unlovely as her action was, I cannot help
+thinking that it was unpremeditated; that it was the unexpected result of
+some strong inward feeling. She looked like one who was justly indignant,
+and, considering what Flossy had said, I felt that her anger was
+righteous. That her disposition is unfortunate cannot be denied. She seems
+already to be an Ishmaelite, for whenever she speaks it is to fling out a
+remark so biting in its sarcasm, so bitter and satirical, that Flossy is
+afraid of her, and Bronson reproves her with unnecessary severity, because
+her offence is that of a grown person, which her childish stature mocks.
+Other children both fear and hate her. They resent her cleverness. They
+like to use her wits to organize their plays, but they never include her,
+for she always wants to lead, feeling, doubtless, that she inherently
+possesses the qualities of a leader, and chafing, as a heroic soul must,
+under inferior management. Flossy makes her go out to play regularly with
+them every day, but it is a pitiful sight, for she feels her unpopularity,
+and children are cruel to each other with the cruelty of vindictive
+dulness; so Rachel, after standing about among them forlornly for a while,
+like a stray robin among a flock of little owls, comes creeping in alone,
+and sits down in the library with a book. She is the loneliest child I
+ever knew. If she cared, people would at least be sorry for her; but she
+seems to love no one, never seeks sympathy if she is hurt, repels all
+attempts to ease pain, and cures herself with her beloved books. I never
+saw any one kiss or offer to pet her, but they make a great fuss over the
+baby, and Rachel watches them with glittering eyes. I thought once that it
+was jealousy, and, going up to her, laid my hand on her head, but she
+shook it off as if it had been a viper, and ran out of the room.
+
+I had grown very fond of my namesake, and used to go there when Flossy was
+away, and sit in the nursery. The nurse told me once that Mrs. Herrick saw
+so little of the baby that it was afraid, and cried at the sight of her. I
+reproved her for speaking in that manner of her mistress, but she only
+tossed her head knowingly, and I dropped the subject. Servants often are
+aware of more than we give them credit for.
+
+Saturday before Easter I stopped at Flossy's, but she was not at home. I
+left some flowers for her, and asked to see the baby, but the nurse said
+she was asleep.
+
+Easter morning I did not go to church, and Rachel Percival came early in
+the afternoon to see if I were ill. While she was here this note arrived
+by a messenger:
+
+     "DEAR RUTH,--I know you will grieve for me when I tell you that our
+     baby went away from us quite suddenly this morning, while the
+     Easter bells were ringing so joyfully. They rang the knell of a
+     mother's heart, for they rang my baby's spirit into Paradise.
+
+     "I feel, through my tears, that it is better so, for she will bind
+     me closer to Heaven when I think that she, in her purity, awaits me
+     there.
+
+     "Hoping to see you very soon, I am
+                     "Your loving         FLOSSY.
+
+     "P.S.--Bronson seems to feel the baby's death to a truly
+     astonishing degree.                  F. H."
+
+I flung the note across to Rachel, and, putting my head down on my two
+arms, I cried just as hard as I could cry.
+
+Rachel read it, then tore it into twenty bits, and ground her heel into
+the fragments.
+
+"Why, Rachel Percival! what is the matter?"
+
+"She wasn't even at home. She was at church. She must have been. She told
+me that Bronson was afraid to have her leave the baby, and wouldn't come
+himself, but that she didn't think anything was the matter with it, and
+wouldn't be tied down. Then such a note so soon afterwards! Ruth, what is
+that woman made of?"
+
+We went together to Flossy's. She came across the room to meet us,
+supported by Bronson. She stumbled two or three times in the attempt.
+Tears were running down Bronson's face, and he wiped them away quite
+humbly, as if he did not mind our seeing them in the least. I could not
+bear to watch him, so I slipped out of the room and went upstairs.
+
+"In here, 'm," said the nurse; "and Miss Rachel is here too. She won't
+move that far from the cradle, and she hasn't shed a tear."
+
+Ruth lay peacefully in her little lace crib, covered with violets, and
+beside her, rigid and white and tearless, stood Rachel. I was almost
+afraid of the child as I looked at her. She turned her great eyes upon me
+dumbly, with so exactly Bronson's expression in them that all at once I
+understood her. I knelt down beside her, and gathering her little tense
+frame all up in my arms, I began whispering to her. The tears rolled down
+her cheeks, and soon she was crying hysterically. Bronson came bounding
+upstairs at the sound, but she seized me more tightly around the neck and
+held me chokingly. I motioned him back, and succeeded in carrying her away
+to a quiet place, where I sat down with her in my arms, and made love to
+her for hours.
+
+I never heard a more pitiful story than she told me, between strangling
+sobs, of her hungry life. The child has been yearning for affection all
+the time, but has unconsciously repelled it by her manner. She said nobody
+on earth loved her except the baby, and now the baby was dead.
+
+"There is no use of your trying to make things different," she said,
+"especially with mamma. She wouldn't care if I was dead too. But papa
+could understand, I think, if he would only try to love me. But I love
+you--oh! I love you so much that it hurts me. Nobody ever came and hugged
+me up the way you did, in my whole life. You have made things over for me,
+and I'll love you for it till I die. Why is it that everybody gives mamma
+and the baby so much love, when they never cared for it, and I care so
+much and never get a single bit? Nobody understands me, and every
+one--every one calls me bad. I'm not bad. I love plenty of people who
+can't love me. I am not bad, I tell you!"
+
+She cried herself nearly sick, and then, exhausted, fell asleep, with her
+face pressed against mine. Thus Bronson found us. He offered to take her,
+and I put her into his arms. Then I told him all that she had said, and
+asked him to hold her until she wakened, and give her some of the love her
+little heart was hungering for. He couldn't speak when I finished, and I
+went down, to find Rachel bathing Flossy's head with cologne, and looking
+worn and tired.
+
+Percival came for Rachel, and one could see that the mere sight of him
+rested her. She told him all about it, in her wonderfully comprehensive
+way, and he felt the whole thing, and we were all very quiet and peaceful
+and sad, as we drove home through the early darkness of that Easter day.
+
+They left me at my door, and I went in alone, with the memory of that
+grieving household--the lonely father, and the selfish mother, and the
+unloved child--hallowed and made tender by the presence of the little dead
+baby, asleep under its weight of violets.
+
+I feel very much alone sometimes; but the Percivals carry their world with
+them.
+
+
+
+
+                                   VII
+
+                          A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE
+
+                    "I am myself indifferent honest."
+
+
+I have just made two startling discoveries. One is that I am not honest
+myself, and the other is that I detest honesty in other people.
+
+To-day I was sitting peacefully in my room, harming nobody, when I saw
+little Pet Winterbotham drive up in her cart and come running up to the
+door. I supposed she had come with a message from her sister, and went
+down, thinking to be detained about ten minutes.
+
+It seems but a few years ago since Pet was in the kindergarten. I was
+surprised to see that she wore her dresses very long, and that she looked
+almost grown up.
+
+"My dear Pet," I exclaimed, "what is the matter?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Ruth, I am in such a scrape," she answered me. "I hope you won't
+think it's queer that I came to you, but the fact is, I've watched you in
+church, and you always look as if you knew, and would help people if they
+would ask you to; so I thought I'd try you.
+
+"Ever and ever so long ago, when I was a little bit of a thing, and played
+with other children, and you and sister Grace went out together, I used to
+'choose' you from all the other young ladies, because you wore such lovely
+hats, and always had on pearl-colored gloves. I suppose it is so long ago
+that you were a young lady and had beaux that you've forgotten it. But I
+know you used to have lovers, for I heard Mrs. Herrick and Mrs. Payson
+Osborne talking about you once, and Mrs. Herrick said you seemed so
+tranquil and contented that she supposed you never had had any really good
+offers, or you would be all the time wishing you had taken one. And Mrs.
+Osborne spoke up in her quick way, and said, 'Don't deceive yourself so
+comfortably, my dear Flossy. I know positively that Ruth has had several
+offers that you and I would have jumped at.' And then she turned away and
+laughed and laughed, although I didn't see anything so very funny in what
+she said, and neither did Mrs. Herrick.
+
+"I do think Mrs. Osborne is the loveliest person I know. She is my ideal
+young married woman. She always has a smile and a pretty word for every
+one, and young men like her better than they do the buds. Why, your face
+is as red as fire. I hope I haven't said anything unpleasant. Mamma says I
+blunder horribly, but she always is too busy to tell me how not to
+blunder.
+
+"Now, I want to know which of these two men you would advise me to marry.
+I've got to take one, I suppose."
+
+"Marry!" I exclaimed, so explosively that Pet started. "Why, child, how
+old are you?"
+
+"I'm nineteen," she said, in rather an injured tone, "and I've always made
+up my mind to marry young, if I got a good enough offer. I hate old maids.
+Oh, excuse me. I don't mean you, of course. I wouldn't marry a clerk, you
+understand, just to be marrying. I'm not so silly. I have plenty of
+common-sense in other things, and I'm going to put some of it into the
+marriage question. Don't you think I'm sensible?"
+
+"Very," I answered; but I didn't, Tabby. I thought she was a goose.
+
+"Well now," proceeded my young caller, settling her ribbons with a pretty
+air of importance, and looking at me out of the most innocent eyes in the
+world, "my sister Grace married Brian Beck because he had such a lot of
+money. But you know he is dissipated, and at first Grace almost went
+distracted. Then she made up her mind to let him go his own gait, and she
+has as good a time as she can on his money. His Irish name Brian is her
+thorn in the flesh, and he teases her nearly out of her wits about it. We
+have great fun on the yacht every summer. Brian is awfully good to me, and
+invites nice men to take with us; still, much as I like Brian as a
+brother-in-law, I shouldn't care to have a husband like him. Now, I
+suppose you wonder why on earth I am telling you these things, and why I
+don't tell one of the girls I go with."
+
+"Oh, no!" I exclaimed in protest.
+
+"Of course. I see you think it wouldn't be safe. Girls just can't help
+telling, to save their lives. Sometimes they don't intend to, and then
+it's bad enough. But sometimes they do it just to be mean, and you can't
+help yourself. I have plenty of confidence in you though, and you don't
+look as if you'd be easily shocked. You look as though you could tell a
+good deal if you wanted to. You're an awfully comfortable sort of a
+person. Now, let me tell you. I have two offers. One is from Clinton
+Frost, and the other is from Jack Whitehouse. You have seen me with Mr.
+Frost, haven't you? A dark, fierce, melancholy man, with black eyes and
+hair, and very distinguished looking.
+
+"I think he has a history. He throws out hints that way. He is gloomy with
+everybody but me, and Brian will do nothing but joke with him. There is
+nothing Mr. Frost dislikes as much as to laugh or to see other people
+laugh. Brian calls him 'Pet's nightmare,' and threatens to give him ink to
+drink.
+
+"I believe Mr. Frost hates Brian. He says the name of our yacht, _Hittie
+Magin_, is unspeakably vulgar. Nothing pleases Brian more than to force
+Mr. Frost or Grace to tell strangers the name of it. Their mere speaking
+the words throws Brian into convulsions of laughter. Then, if people
+comment on it, he tells them that the name is of his wife's selection, in
+deference to his Irish family. And Grace almost faints with mortification.
+Mr. Frost says he will give me a yacht twice as good as Brian's. He adores
+me. He says I am the only thing in life which makes him smile."
+
+I felt that I could sympathize with Mr. Frost on this point.
+
+"Then there's Jack Whitehouse, Norris Whitehouse's nephew. Mr. Norris
+Whitehouse is a great friend of yours, isn't he? Do you know, I never
+think of him as an 'eligible,' although he is a bachelor. I should as soon
+think of a king in that light. He impresses me more than any man I ever
+knew. Don't you consider him odd? No? I do. He is so clever that you would
+be afraid of him, if it wasn't for his lovely manners, which make you
+feel as though what you are saying is just what he has been wanting to
+know, and he is so glad he has met some one who is able to tell him.
+Actually he treats me with more respect than some of the young men do. He
+makes me feel as if I were a woman, and he had a right to expect something
+good of me. I never said that to anybody before, but I can talk to you and
+feel that you understand me. I like to feel that people think there is
+something to me, even if I know that it isn't much. Mrs. Asbury says that
+Mr. Whitehouse is the courtliest man she knows. You know the story of the
+Whitehouse money, don't you? Jack told it to me with tears in his eyes,
+and I don't wonder at it. You know Jack's father and mother died when he
+was very young. Norris was his father's favorite, and the old gentleman
+made a most unjust will, leaving only a life interest in the property to
+Jack's father; then it all went to his favorite younger son, Norris. Now,
+you know what most men would do under the circumstances. They would
+acknowledge the injustice of the will, but they would keep the money.
+This proves to me what an unusual man Mr. Norris Whitehouse is, for he
+immediately made over to his little nephew Jack one half of the
+property--just what his father ought to have been able to leave him--and
+Jack is to come into that when he is twenty-five. Don't you think that was
+noble? Jack worships him. He says no father could have been more devoted
+to an only son than his uncle Norris has been to him. He travelled with
+him, and gave up years of his life to superintending Jack's education.
+
+"Now, whoever marries Jack will really be at the head of that elegant
+house, for you know it hasn't had a mistress since Jack's mother died,
+years ago. I should like that, although I do wish more of the expense was
+in furniture instead of in pictures and tapestries. But that is his
+uncle's taste.
+
+"Poor Jack talks so beautifully about his young mother, whom he can
+scarcely remember. He says his uncle has kept her alive to him. He is
+perfectly lovely with other fellows' mothers, and with mine. He treats
+them all, he says, as he should like to have had others treat his mother.
+Of course it is only sentiment with him. If she had lived, he might have
+given her as much trouble as other boys give theirs. She must have been
+lovely. Mamma says she was. But I'd just as soon not have any
+mother-in-law to tell me to wrap up, and wear rubbers if it looked like
+rain. You know there isn't a bit of sentiment in me. I'm practical. My
+father says if I had been a boy he would have taken me into business at
+fifteen. Jack thinks I am all sentiment. He says nobody could have a face
+like mine and not possess an innate love of the beautiful in art and
+poetry and all that. I have forgotten just what he said about that part of
+it. But I know he meant to praise me. I didn't say anything in reply, but
+I smiled to myself at the idea of Pet Winterbotham being credited with
+fine sentiment.
+
+"Jack is horribly young--only twenty-two--so he won't have his money for
+three years, and Mr. Frost is thirty-nine. Jack has curly hair, and when
+he wears a white tennis suit and puts his cap on the back of his head and
+holds a cigarette in his hand, he looks as if he had just stepped out of
+one of the pictures in _Life_. He looks so 'chappie.' He is a good deal
+easier to get along with than Mr. Frost, and will have more money some
+day, although Mr. Frost has enough. Now, which would you take?"
+
+"Why, my dear Pet," I said in an unguarded moment, "which do you love?"
+
+I shrivelled visibly under the look of scorn she cast upon me.
+
+"I don't love either of them. I've had one love affair and I don't care
+for another until I make sure which man I'm going to marry."
+
+"Can you fall in love to order?" I asked in dismay.
+
+"Not exactly. 'To order!' Why, no. Anybody would think you were having
+boots made. But it's being with a man, and having him awfully good to you,
+and admiring everything you say, and having lots of good clothes, and not
+being in love with any other fellow, that makes you love a man. I'm sure
+from your manner that you like Jack Whitehouse the best, so I think I'll
+take him. You are awfully sweet, and not a bit like an old maid. I tell
+everybody so."
+
+"Am I called an Old Maid?" I asked quickly. I could have bitten my tongue
+out for it afterwards.
+
+"Oh, yes indeed, by all the younger set. You see you belonged to Grace's
+set and they are all married. It makes you seem like a back number to us,
+but you don't look like an old maid. I suppose you can look back ages and
+ages and remember when you had lovers, can't you? Or have you forgotten? I
+can't imagine you ever getting love-letters or flowers or any such things.
+I hope I haven't offended you. I am horribly honest, you know. I say just
+what I think, and you mustn't mind it. Mamma says I am too truthful to be
+pleasant. But I like honesty myself, don't you?"
+
+And with that, Tabby, she went away.
+
+How terrible the child is! Now, Pet is one of those persons who go about
+lacerating people and clothing their ignorance, or their insolence, in the
+garb of honesty.
+
+"I am honest," say they, "so you must not be offended, but is it true that
+your grandfather was hanged for being a pirate?" Or, "I believe in being
+perfectly honest with people. How cross-eyed you are!"
+
+This is why honesty is so disreputable. When you say of a woman, "She is
+one of those honest, outspoken persons," it means that she will probably
+hurt your feelings, or insult you in your first interview with her.
+
+I don't like to admit it even to you, Tabby, but I am horribly shaken up.
+After all these years of talking about myself to you as an Old Maid, and
+knowing that I am one, to hear myself called such, and to catch a glimpse
+of the way I appear to the oncoming generation, shakes me to the
+foundation of my being. Soon _I_ shall be pushed to the wall, as something
+too worn out to be needed by bright young people. Soon _I_ shall be one of
+the old people whom I have so dreaded all my life. Dear Tabby-cat! You can
+remember when Missis received love-letters, can't you? They are not all in
+the japanned box, are they? Do I seem old to you, kitty? Why, there is
+actually a tear on your gray fur. Dear me, what a silly Old Maid Missis
+is!
+
+You see, after all, I have not been honest, even with myself. And, just
+between you and me, I will say that I abominate honesty in other people.
+There!
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+                            A GAME OF HEARTS
+
+                   "Man proposes, but Heaven disposes."
+
+
+Tabby, did you ever hear me speak of Charlie Hardy? No, of course not.
+Your mother must have been a kitten when I knew Charlie the best. He is a
+nice boy. Boy! What am I talking about? He is as old as I am. But he is
+the kind of man who always seems a boy, and everybody who has known him
+two days calls him Charlie.
+
+Rachel Percival never thought much of him. She said he was weak, and
+weakness in a man is something Rachel never excuses. She says it is
+trespassing on one of the special privileges of our sex. Thus she disposed
+of Charlie Hardy.
+
+"Look at his chin," said Rachel; "could a man be strong with a chin like
+that?"
+
+"But he is so kind-hearted and easy to get along with," I urged.
+
+"Very likely. He hasn't strength of mind to quarrel. He is unwilling, like
+most easy-going men, to inflict that kind of pain. But he could be as
+cruel as the grave in other ways. Look at him. He always is in hot water
+about something, and never does as people expect him to do."
+
+"But he doesn't do wrong on purpose, and he makes charming excuses and
+apologies."
+
+"He ought to; he has had enough practice," answered Rachel, with her
+beautiful smile. "He has what I call a conscience for surface things. He
+regards life from the wrong point of view, and, as to his always intending
+to do right--you know the place said to be paved with good intentions. No,
+no, Ruth. Charlie Hardy is a dangerous man, because he is weak. Through
+such men as he comes very bitter sorrow in this world."
+
+That conversation, Tabby, took place, if not before you were created, at
+least in your early infancy--the time when your own weight threw you down
+if you tried to walk, and when ears and tail were the least of your
+make-up.
+
+All these years Charlie has never married, but was always with the girls.
+He dropped with perfect composure from our set to Sallie Cox's--was her
+slave for two years, though Sallie declares that she never was engaged to
+him. "What's the use of being engaged to a man that you can keep on hand
+without?" quoth Sallie. But Charlie bore no malice. "I didn't stand the
+ghost of a show with a girl like Sallie, when she had such men as Winston
+Percival and those literary chaps around her. It was great sport to watch
+her with those men. You know what a little chatterbox she is. By Jove!
+when that fellow Percival began to talk, Sallie never had a word to say
+for herself. It must have been awfully hard for her, but she certainly let
+him do all the talking, and just sat and listened, looking as sweet as a
+peach. Oh! I never had any chance with Sallie."
+
+Nevertheless, he was usher at her wedding, then dropped peacefully to the
+next younger set, and now is going with girls of Pet Winterbotham's age.
+
+I thoroughly like the boy, but I can't imagine myself falling in love with
+him. If I were married to another man--an indiscreet thing for an Old Maid
+to say, Tabby, but I only use it for illustration--I should not mind
+Charlie Hardy's dropping in for Sunday dinner every week, if he wanted to.
+He never bothers. He never is in the way. He is as deft at buttoning a
+glove as he is amiable at playing cards. You always think of Charlie Hardy
+first if you are making up a theatre party. He serves equally well as
+groomsman or pall-bearer--although I do not speak from experience in
+either instance. He never is cross or sulky. He makes the best of
+everything, and I think men say that he is "an all-round good fellow."
+
+I depend a great deal upon other men's opinion of a man. I never
+thoroughly trust a man who is not a favorite with his own sex. I wish men
+were as generous to us in that respect, for a woman whom other women do
+not like is just as dangerous. And I never knew simple jealousy--the
+reason men urge against accepting our verdict--to be universal enough to
+condemn a woman. There always are a few fair-minded women in every
+community--just enough to be in the minority--to break continuous
+jealousy.
+
+Be that as it may, the man I am talking about has kept up his acquaintance
+with Rachel and Alice Asbury and me in a desultory way, and occasionally
+he grows confidential. The last time I saw him he said:
+
+"Sometimes I wish I were a woman, Ruth, when I get into so much trouble
+with the girls. Women never seem to have any worry over love affairs. All
+they have to do is to lean back and let men wait on them until they see
+one that suits them. It is like ordering from a _menu_ card for them to
+select husbands. You run over a list for a girl--oysters, clams, or
+terrapin--and she takes terrapin. In the other case she runs over her own
+list--Smith, Jones, or Robinson--and likewise takes the rarest. But she is
+not at all troubled about it. Marrying is so easy for a girl. It comes
+natural to her."
+
+Tabby, I did wish that he knew as much of the internal mechanism of the
+engagements that you and I have participated in, by proxy, as we do--if he
+would understand, profit by, and speedily forget the knowledge.
+
+But, like the hypocrite I am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for
+women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller
+ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit,
+Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their
+lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making
+up their minds." You see I uphold my own sex at all hazards--to men.
+
+He was standing up to go when he said that, but there was something about
+him which led me to suspect that he was in a condition when he needed some
+woman to straighten out his affairs. I made no reply, which threw the
+burden of continuing the conversation upon him. I was in that passive
+state which made me perfectly willing to have him say good-night and go
+home or stay and confess to me, just as he chose. I knew he needed me; a
+good many men need their mothers once in a while as much as they ever did
+when boys. There was something whimsically boyish about Charlie as he
+leaned over the back of a tall chair and debated secretly whether or not
+he should confide in me.
+
+"Why don't you ask me why I said that?" he said.
+
+"Because I know without asking. You were induced to say it by what you
+have been thinking of all the evening. It sounded like a beginning, but
+really it was an ending."
+
+He looked as though he thought me a mind-reader, but I fancy the knack of
+divining when people need a confidant is preternaturally developed in old
+maids.
+
+"How good you are, Ruth."
+
+"You men always think women are good when they understand you. But it
+isn't goodness."
+
+"No, you're right. It's more comfortable than goodness. It's odd how you
+do it. May I tell you about it? You won't think half as well of me as you
+do now, but it needs just such women as you to keep men straight, and if
+you will give me your opinion I vow I'll do as you say, even if it kills
+me."
+
+I was afraid from that desperate ending that it was something serious, and
+it was. He made several attempts before he could begin. Finally he burst
+out with,
+
+"Although you are the easiest person in the world to talk to, and I've
+known you always, it is pretty hard to lay this case before you so that
+you won't think me a conceited prig. That is because you are a woman and
+can't help looking at it from a woman's standpoint. For a good many
+reasons it would be easier to tell it to some man, who would know how it
+was himself; but you see I want a woman's conscience and a woman's
+judgment, because you can put yourself in another woman's place."
+
+He grew quite red as he talked, and I waited patiently for him to go on,
+but gave him no help.
+
+"Well, here goes. If you hate me afterwards I can't help it. I had no idea
+it would be so hard to tell you or I shouldn't have attempted it. But
+since you have been sitting there looking at me I am beginning to think
+differently of it myself, and I'm sure that, with all your kindness, you
+will be very hard on me, and tell me to accept the hardest alternative.
+Now, Ruth, you'd better shake hands with me and say good-by while you like
+me, because you will think of me as another Charlie Hardy when I've
+finished."
+
+He actually held out his hand, but I folded mine together.
+
+"No," I said, smiling, "I shall not bid you good-by until I really am
+through with you. Don't look so discouraged. Come; possibly I may be a
+better friend to you than you think."
+
+"You are awfully good," he said again. I don't know when I have so
+impressed a man with my extraordinary goodness as I did by listening to
+Charlie while he did all the talking. If I could have held my tongue
+another hour, he would have called me an angel.
+
+"Well, although you may not know it, I am engaged to Louise King. I
+always have been very fond of her, and when I found I couldn't get
+Sallie, I was sure I cared as much for Louise as I ever could care for
+anybody, and I was perfectly satisfied with her--thought she would make me
+an awfully good wife, and all that. But while Miss Taliaferro was up here
+visiting Sallie, I was with her a good deal, and the first thing I knew we
+were dead in love with each other. You know we were both in Sallie's
+wedding-party, and I tell you, Ruth, to stand up at the altar with a girl
+he is already half in love with, plays the very deuce with a man. Kentucky
+girls are all pretty, I suppose--everybody says so, and you have to make
+believe you think so whether you do or not; but this one--you know her?
+Isn't she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Well, of course she didn't
+know I was engaged, and I kept putting off telling her, until the first
+thing I knew I was letting her see how much I thought of her. I don't
+suppose it was at all difficult to see, but girls are keen on such
+subjects, and a man can't be in love with one more than a week before she
+knows more about it than he does. Then, after she told me that she loved
+me, how could I tell her that, in spite of what I had said, I was engaged
+to another girl? Wouldn't she have thought I was a rascal? No; I had to
+let her go home thinking that, if we were not already engaged, we should
+be some time, and I went part way with her, and--it was a mean trick to
+play, but the nonsensical things that unthinking people do precipitate
+affairs which perhaps without their means might never fully develop. Brian
+Beck heard that I was going a few miles with her, and he and Sallie and
+Payson came down to the train to see us off. Just as we pulled out of the
+station, Brian made the most frantic signs for me to open the window, and
+when I did so, he threw a tissue-paper package at me. Frankie and I both
+made an effort to catch it. Of course it burst when we touched it, and a
+good pound of rice was scattered all over us. You never saw such a sight.
+It flew in every direction; her hat and my hair were full of it. Some went
+down my collar. Of course everybody in the car roared and--well, I'm not
+done blushing at it yet. Frankie took it much better than I, and only
+laughed at it. But I--I felt more like crying. I saw instantly how it
+complicated things. It was a nail driven into my coffin.
+
+"We had no more than settled down from that and were just having a good
+little talk, after the passengers had stopped looking at us, when the
+porter appeared, bringing a basket of white flowers with two turtle-doves
+suspended from the handle, and Brian Beck's card on it. I wish you could
+have heard the people laugh. I declare to you, Ruth, when I saw that great
+white thing coming and knew what it meant, it looked as big as a
+billiard-table to me. I was going to pay the fellow to take it out again,
+but no--Frankie wanted it. She made me put it down on the opposite seat
+and there it stood. Those sickening birds were too much for me, so I
+jerked them off and threw them out of the window, conscious that my face
+was very red and that I was amusing more people than I had bargained for.
+
+"When the time came for me to get off and take the train back, Frankie
+implored me to go on with her, urging how strange it would look to
+people, who all thought we were married, to see me disappear and have her
+go on alone. I railed at the idea, but she was in earnest, and when I told
+her positively that I couldn't--thinking more, I must admit, of the state
+of my affairs than of hers--she began to cry under her veil. That settled
+it. Of course I couldn't stand it to see the girl I loved cry, so I went
+home with her, fell deeper in love every minute I was there, and came away
+feeling like a cur because I had not spoken to her father. Her people met
+me in the cordial, honest manner of those who have faith in mankind, but I
+couldn't look them in the face without flinching.
+
+"Since I came back, of course, I've been visiting Louise as usual. I told
+her all about the rice and flowers, thinking that if she quarrelled with
+me about the affair she would break off the engagement. But she only
+laughed and said it served me right for flirting with every girl that came
+along, and didn't even reproach me. She has absolute faith in me. She
+doesn't believe I could sink so low as I have, any more than she could.
+She has idealized me until I don't dare to breathe for fear of destroying
+the illusion. She thinks that I love her in the way she loves me, but I
+couldn't. It isn't in me, Ruth. I don't even love Frankie that way. To
+tell the truth, Louise is too good for me. She is magnificent, but I am
+rather afraid of her. She has so many ideals and is so intense. Her faith
+in me makes me shiver. I am not a bit comfortable with her. I do not even
+understand how she can love me so much. I am nothing extraordinary, but if
+you knew the way she treats me, you would think I was Achilles or some of
+those Greek fellows. She has refused better and richer men than I. Norris
+Whitehouse has loved her all her life, and you know what a splendid man he
+is, but Louise ridicules the idea of ever caring for anybody but me. She
+is so perfect that there is absolutely no flaw in her for me to recognize
+and feel friendly with. She reads me like a book, but I am less acquainted
+with her than I was before we were engaged. She says such beautiful things
+to me sometimes, things that are far beyond my comprehension, and she can
+get so uplifted that I feel as if I never had met her. There's no use in
+talking; after a girl falls in love with a man she often ceases to be the
+girl he courted."
+
+I recalled what I had said to Percival--"Often a woman denies herself the
+expression of the best part of her love, for fear that it will be either
+a puzzle or a terror to her lover." Such a saying belonged to Percival.
+I shouldn't think of repeating it to Charlie, for he could not comprehend
+it. I should puzzle him as much as Louise did. It made me heartsick. How
+could even Charlie Hardy so persistently misunderstand the grandeur of
+Louise King? Yet how could such a glorious girl imagine herself in love
+with nice, weak, agreeable Charlie Hardy?
+
+Louise is a younger, handsomer, more impetuous, less clever edition of
+Rachel Percival; but she is of that order. She is less concentrated and
+more emotional than Rachel. I did not quite know how a great sorrow would
+affect Louise. Rachel would use it as a stepping-stone towards heaven.
+
+I have seen a young, untried race-horse with small, pointed, restless
+ears; with delicate nostrils where the red blood showed; with full, soft
+eyes where fire flashed; with a satin skin so thin and glossy that even
+the lightest hand would cause it to quiver to the touch; where pride and
+fire and royal blood seemed to urge a trial of their powers; and I have
+thought: "You are capable of passing anything on the track and coming
+under the wire triumphant and victorious; or you might fulfil your
+prophecy equally well by falling dead in your first heat, with the red
+blood gushing from those thin nostrils. We can be sure of nothing until
+you are tried, but it is a quivering delight to look at you and to share
+your impatience and to wonder what you will do."
+
+Occasionally I see women who affect me in the same way--idealists, capable
+of being wounded through their sensitiveness by things which we ordinary
+mortals accept philosophically; capable also of greater heights of
+happiness and lower depths of misery, but of suffering most through being
+misunderstood. To this class Rachel and Louise belong. Rachel, in
+Percival, has reached a haven where she rides at anchor, sheltered from
+such storms as had hitherto almost engulfed her, and growing more
+heroically beautiful in character day by day. Poor Louise is still at sea,
+with a great storm brewing. How hard, how terribly hard, to talk to
+Charlie Hardy about her, when, after the solemnity of an engagement tie
+between them, he was capable of misunderstanding, not only her, but the
+whole situation so blindly! But what a calamity it would be if Louise
+should marry him!
+
+"Go on, Ruth. Say something, do. I imagine all sorts of things while you
+just sit there looking at me so solemnly. I realize that I am in a tight
+place. I did hope that you could see some way out of it for me; but I
+know, by the way you act, that you think I ought to give up Frankie--dear
+little girl!--and marry Louise, and by Jove! if you say it's the handsome
+thing to do, I'll do it."
+
+This still more effectually closed my lips. He so evidently thought that
+he was being heroic. He added rather reluctantly, "I must say that I
+suppose Frankie Taliaferro would get over it much more easily than Louise
+could."
+
+"Charlie," I said slowly, "you don't mean to be, but you are too conceited
+to live. I wonder that you haven't died of conceit before this."
+
+Charlie's blond face flushed and he looked deeply offended.
+
+"Conceited!" he burst out. "Why, Ruth, there isn't a fellow going who has
+a worse opinion of himself than I have. I don't see what either of those
+girls sees in me to love, I tell you. I am not proud of it. I wish to
+Heaven they didn't love me. _I_ haven't made them."
+
+"'Haven't made them'! Yes, you have. You are just the kind of man who
+does. You say pretty things even to old women, and bring them shawls and
+put footstools under their feet with the air of a lover. And if you only
+hand a woman an ice you look unutterable things. You have a dozen girls at
+a time in that indefinite state when three words to any one of them would
+engage you to her, and she would think you had deliberately led up to it;
+whereas all the past had been idle admiration on your part, and it was a
+rose in her hair or a moment in the conservatory that upset you, and there
+you are. Oh, these girls, these girls, who believe every time a man at a
+ball says he loves them that he means it! Why can't you be satisfied to
+have some of them friends, and not all sweethearts?"
+
+"It can't be done. I've tried and I know. Sallie tried it and it married
+her off--a thing not one of her flirtations could have accomplished. This
+is the way it goes. You arrange with a girl not to have any nonsense, but
+just to be good friends. You take her to the theatre, drive with her,
+dance with her. Soon her chaperon begins to eye you over. Fellows at the
+club drop a remark now and then. You explain that you are only friends,
+and they wink at you and you feel foolish. Next time they see you with
+her, they look knowing, and you see, to your horror, that the girl is
+blushing. Evidently she is under fire too. Still, you keep it up. She
+makes a better comrade than any of the men. You feel that you are out of
+mischief when you are with her. She keeps you alert. You never are bored,
+but really you are not as fond of her as you were of your college chum
+even. She treats you a trifle, just a trifle, differently from all the
+other men. This goes to your head. You begin to make a little difference
+yourself. You take her hand when you say good-night, just as you would one
+of the men. But it is not the same. The girl has needles or electricity in
+her hand. You can't let go. You begin to feel that friendship, too, can be
+dangerous. Next day you send her flowers, with some lines about the
+delights of friendship. She accepts both beautifully, but you have a
+guilty feeling that you did it to remind her. She does not seem to
+understand that there had been any necessity. Still, you feel rather mean,
+and to make up for it you try to atone by your manner. She is looking
+perfectly lovely. She wears white. You particularly like white. She knows
+it. You think perhaps she wore it to please you. _How_ pretty she is! You
+lose your head a little and say something. She looks innocent and
+surprised. She 'thought we were just friends. Surely,' she says, 'you
+have said so often enough. Why change? Friends are so much more
+comfortable.' She wants to 'stay a friend.' You are miserable at the idea,
+although that morning it was just what you wanted. You were even afraid
+she would think differently. What an ass a man can be! You fling
+discretion to the winds and tell her--you tell her--well, you go home
+engaged to her. That's how a friendship ends. Bah!"
+
+"A realistic recital. From hearsay, of course! The next day the man wishes
+he were well out of it, I suppose?"
+
+"Not quite so soon as that, but soon enough."
+
+"Ah, I wish you knew, Charlie Hardy, how all this sounds even to such a
+good friend of yours as I am. It is such men as you who lower the standard
+of love and of men in general. Do you suppose a girl who has had an
+encounter with you, and seen how trifling you are, can have her first
+beautiful faith to give to the truly grand hero when he comes? No; it has
+been bruised and beaten down by what you call 'a little flirtation,' and
+possibly her unwillingness to trust a second time may force her true
+lover into withdrawing his suit. How dare men and women trifle with the
+Shekinah of their lives? And when it has been dulled by abuse, what a
+pitiful Shekinah it appears to the one who approaches it reverently,
+confidently expecting it to be the uncontaminated holy of holies! It is
+this sort of thing which makes infidels about love."
+
+Charlie began to look sulky, feeling, I suppose, that I was piling the
+sins of the universe on to his already burdened shoulders.
+
+"I dare say you are right, but what am I to do?"
+
+"There is only one thing for you to do, but I know you won't do it."
+
+"Yes, I will. Only try me," he said, brightening up.
+
+"You must go and tell Louise that you are in love with Frankie
+Taliaferro."
+
+"Tell Louise? Why, Ruth, it would kill her. You don't know her. She
+wouldn't let me off. You don't know how a girl in love feels. Ruth, were
+you ever in love?"
+
+"That is not a pertinent question," I said. "It comes quite near being
+the other thing. But let me tell you, Charlie Hardy, I know Louise King,
+and it won't kill her. You know 'men have died and worms have eaten them,
+but not for love.' That might be said of women." (I didn't know, Tabby,
+whether it might or might not. I couldn't afford to let him see my doubts,
+if I had any.) "We don't die as easily as you men seem to think."
+
+"But is this your view of what is right?" he asked. "I was sure you would
+counsel the other. I've been fortifying myself to give Frankie up and
+marry Louise, and, with all due respect to you, I must say that I think
+you are wrong here. You must remember that my honor is involved."
+
+"Bother your honor!" I cried explosively. Charlie seemed rather pleased
+than otherwise at my inelegance. "I am tired to death of hearing men fall
+back on nonsense about their honor. I notice they seldom feel called upon
+to refer to it unless they are involved in something disreputable."
+
+Charlie straightened up at this and settled his coat with an indignant
+jerk.
+
+"I hardly think," he began stiffly, "that I am involved in anything
+disreputable in being engaged to Miss King."
+
+"What are a man's debts of honor?" I went on with growing excitement.
+"Gaming debts and things he would scarcely care to explain to the public
+at large. Your honor is involved in this, is it? And you must save your
+honor at all hazards, no matter who goes to the wall in the process! I
+suppose if you made the rash vow that, if your horse won the race, you
+would cut your mother's head off, while you were still in the flush of
+victory, you would seize your bowie-knife and go to work! No? Oh, yes,
+Charlie. Your honor, as you call it, is involved. I insist upon it. You
+must do it. Oh, I am going too far, am I? Not one step further than men go
+in the mire whither their honor leads them. Debts of honor, indeed! Debts
+of dishonor I call them. So do most women."
+
+"Yes, but, Ruth," interrupted Charlie uneasily, "an engagement is
+different. I don't dispute what you say in regard to gambling debts--"
+
+"You can't," I murmured rebelliously.
+
+"--but a man can't, with any decency, ask a girl to release him when he
+has sought her out and asked her to marry him."
+
+"Perhaps not with decency. But it is a place where this precious honor of
+yours might come into play. It would at least be honorable."
+
+"There isn't a man who would agree with you," he cried.
+
+"Nor is there a woman who would agree with you," I retorted. But both of
+us stretched things a little at this point.
+
+He thought over the situation for a few minutes, then said,
+
+"You understand that, in my opinion, Louise loves me the best."
+
+"The best--yes. For that very reason you must not marry her. O Charlie!
+try to understand," I pleaded. "She must love the best when she loves at
+all. She has loved the best in you, until she has put it out of your reach
+ever to attain to it. It would not be fair to the girl, it would be
+robbing her, to accept all this beautiful love for you, and give her in
+return--your love for another girl. Do you suppose for an instant that
+you could continue to deceive her after you were married? Supposing she
+found out afterwards, then what? She might die of that. I cannot say. It
+would be enough to kill her. But not if you are honest and manly enough to
+tell her in time to save her self-respect. You are powerless to touch it
+now. You could kill it if you were married."
+
+"Honest and manly enough to confess myself a rascal? I don't see where it
+would come in," he replied gloomily.
+
+"It is the nearest approach to it which lies in your power."
+
+"If the girls' places were only reversed now! I could tell Frankie that I
+had been false to our engagement and had fallen in love with Louise. She
+would know how it was herself. But Louise couldn't comprehend such things.
+I believe she has been as true to me, even in thought, as if she had been
+my wife. How can I tell her?"
+
+"The more you say, the plainer you make it your duty. I say, how can you
+not tell her?"
+
+"I might go away for a year and not let her know and not write to her.
+Then she would know without my having to tell her."
+
+"You wouldn't stand it if a man called you a coward. Don't try my woman's
+friendship for you too far. You insult me by offering such a suggestion."
+
+"Gently, gently, Ruth. I beg your pardon." (Rachel was right in saying he
+would not quarrel. I wished he would. I never wanted to quarrel so much in
+my life.)
+
+"I am a coward," he broke down at last. "I'll spare you the trouble of
+saying so. But oh, Ruth, you don't know how I dread a scene! You go and
+tell her. I can't. I couldn't even write it."
+
+"How unselfish you are! Spare yourself at all hazards, Charlie, for of
+course it was not your fault that things got into such a state."
+
+"Oh, Ruth, don't!"
+
+"Well, I won't. But do you realize how I should insult her if I went to
+her? It's bad enough for you, the man she loves, to tell her. From any one
+else it would be unforgivable. Do as you like. You promised to follow my
+advice. Take it and do as you will with it. But I will guarantee the
+result if you will do as I say. Come, Charlie. One hour, and it will all
+be over, and you can marry Frankie."
+
+It was like getting him into a dentist's chair. I felt a wholesome
+self-contempt as I thus sugar-coated his pill, but he was so abject in his
+misery.
+
+Charlie brightened up perceptibly at the alluring prospect. He shut his
+eyes to the dark path which led to happiness, and was revelling in its
+glory.
+
+"Ruth, you dear thing! I don't see how I ever can thank you enough," he
+said, taking both my hands in his. "I ought to have stuck to you, that's
+what I ought to have done. You would have kept me straight. Do you know, I
+used to be awfully in love with you. You really were my first love. I was
+about eighteen then. You don't look a day older, and you are just as sweet
+as ever."
+
+I laughed outright.
+
+"What did I tell you?" I cried. "You can't help making love to save your
+life. Your gratitude is getting you into deeper water every minute. Go
+home, do. Run for your life, or you'll be engaged to me too. _Then_
+who'll help you out?"
+
+He acted upon my suggestion and went hastily.
+
+Tabby, did you ever? He never was in love with me, never on this earth.
+Whatever possessed him to say such a thing? He loses his head, that's what
+he does. I hope he won't meet any woman younger than his grandmother
+before he gets home, or he might propose to her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My heart stands still when I think of Louise King.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+                     THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND
+
+     "It is not true that love makes all things easy, but it makes us
+     choose what is difficult."
+
+
+Across the street, in plain view from my window, has come to dwell a
+little brown wren of a woman with her five babies. The house, hitherto
+inconspicuous among its finer neighbors, at the advent of the Mayo family
+suddenly bloomed into a home. The lawn blossomed with living flowers and
+the windows framed faces which shamed, in their dimpling loveliness, the
+painted cherubs on the wall.
+
+It was a delight to see Nellie Mayo in the midst of her children. Hers
+were all babies, such dear, amiable, kissable babies, each of whom seemed
+personally anxious to prove to every one how much sweetness one small
+morsel of humanity could hold. But with five of them, bless me! the house
+was one glowing radiance of sunshine, in which the little mother lived and
+loved, until they absorbed each other's personality, and it was difficult
+to think of one without the others.
+
+Sometimes in a street-car or on the elevated train I have seen women who I
+felt convinced had little babies at home. It is because of the peculiar
+look they wear, the rapturous mother-look, which has its home in the eyes
+during the most helpless period of babyhood--an indescribable look, in
+which dreams and prophecy and heaven are mingled. It is the sweetest look
+which can come to a woman's face, saying plainly, "Oh, I have such a
+secret in my heart! Would that every one knew its rapture with me!" It
+wears off sooner or later, but with Nellie Mayo, whether because there
+always was a baby, or because each was welcomed with such a world of love,
+the look remained until it seemed a part of her face.
+
+Long ago we knew her as an unworldly girl, whose peachblow coloring gave
+to her face its chief beauty, although her plaintive blue eyes and smooth
+brown hair called forth a certain protective faith in her simplicity and
+goodness. Sometimes girlhood is a mysterious chaos of traits, out of which
+no one can foretell what sort of cosmos will follow, or whether there will
+be a cosmos at all or only intelligent chaos to the end. But this girl
+seemed to carry her future in her face. She was a little mother to us all.
+It was a tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a
+poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged
+perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her
+unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as
+she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie's capacity for
+aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie's swifter brain
+and willing feet; for to see any one's unspoken need was to her like a
+thrilling cry for help, and was the only thing which could completely draw
+her from her shy reserve. The chief reason she was popular was that she
+had a faculty of keeping herself in the shadow. You never knew where she
+was until you wanted her, when she would seem to rise out of the earth to
+your side. But, in spite of your intense gratitude at the moment, you
+really found yourself taking her as a matter of course. She was one of
+those who are fully appreciated only when they are dead, and who then call
+forth the bitterest remorse that we have not made them know in life how
+dear they were and how painfully necessary to our happiness.
+
+It is rather a sad commentary upon those same girls, who accepted Nellie's
+assistance most readily, to record that, when they were launched into
+society and were deep in the mysteries of full-fledged young-ladyhood,
+little Nellie Maddox was seldom invited to their most fashionable
+gatherings, but came in, at first, before their memory grew too rusty,
+for the simpler luncheons and teas.
+
+This is not a history of intentional or systematic neglect, but a mere
+statement of the way things drifted along. Not one of the girls would
+wilfully have omitted her, if she had been in the habit of being asked;
+but it was easy to let her name slip when all the rest did it, and so
+gradually it came to pass that we seldom saw her. Then she married Frank
+Mayo, who would not be offended if he heard a newsboy refer to him as "a
+gent," or a maid-servant describe him as "a pretty man." Of such a one it
+is scarcely necessary to add that he was selfish, inordinately conceited,
+and, to complete the description, a trifle vulgar. He never suspected his
+wife's cleverness nor appreciated her worship. It almost made me doubt her
+cleverness to see how she idolized him, but this instance went far towards
+proving that love, with some women, is entirely an affair of the heart. It
+irritates Rachel to hear any one say so. She says it argues ignorance of a
+nice distinction in terms, and that when the brain is not concerned it
+should be called by a baser name.
+
+I doubt if she could have brought herself to say so if she had been
+looking into Nellie Mayo's blue eyes, which looked tired and a little less
+blue than as I remembered them. They had pathetic purple shadows under
+them, which told of sleepless nights with the babies, and there were fine
+lines around her mouth; but her light-brown hair was as smooth and her
+dress as plain and neat as ever.
+
+It was like watching a nest of birds. I felt my own love expand to see the
+wealth of affection Nellie had for her precious family. Her unselfish zeal
+never flagged. She flitted from one want to another as naturally as she
+breathed and with as little consciousness of the process. Her household
+machinery ran no more smoothly than many another's, but Nellie met and
+surmounted all obstacles with an unruffled brow. Her outward calm was the
+result of some great inward peace. She simply had developed naturally from
+the girl we had known before we grew up and went away to be "finished by
+travel."
+
+Nothing could go so wrongly, no nerves throb so pitilessly, that they
+prevented her meeting her husband with the smile reserved for him alone.
+None of the babies could call it forth. When he came home tired, Nellie
+fluttered around him making him comfortable, as if life held for her no
+sweeter task.
+
+Being a woman myself, and having no husband to wait upon until it became
+natural, I used to feel somewhat vexed that he never served her, instead
+of receiving the best of everything so complacently. He never seemed to
+realize that she might be tired or needed a change of routine. That
+household revolved around him. Of course it was partly Nellie's fault that
+he had fallen into the habit of receiving everything and making no return.
+Fallen into it? No. With that kind of a man, an only son, and considered
+by the undiscriminating to be good-looking, his wife had only to take up
+his mother's unfinished work of spoiling him. It is true that these
+unselfish women inculcate a system of selfishness in their families which
+often works their ruin. They rob the children of their rightful virtue of
+self-sacrifice.
+
+So Nellie idolized her husband. He was her king, and the king could do no
+wrong. She taught the babies a sweet system of idolatry, which so far had
+been harmless. He cared very little for children; so, when yearning to
+express their love for the hero of all their mother's stories, with their
+little hearts almost bursting with affection, their love was most
+frequently tested by being obliged to keep away from their idol in order
+"not to bother him" with their kisses. Fortunately these same withheld
+kisses were dear to Nellie, and she never was too busy to accept and
+return them. Thus they never knew how busy she was. She was sure to be
+about some sweet task for others. If she ever rested, it was with the
+cosiest corner occupied by somebody else.
+
+I wonder what will happen when, in heaven, one of these selfless mothers
+is led in triumph to a solid gold throne, all lined with eider-down
+cushions, where she can take the rest she never had on earth. Won't she
+stagger back against the glittering walls of the New Jerusalem and say,
+"Not for me. Not for me. Surely it must be for my husband?" But there,
+where places are appointed, she will not be allowed to give it up--which
+may make her miserable even in heaven. Ah me, these mothers! It brings
+tears to my eyes to think of their unending love, which wraps around and
+shelters and broods over every one, whose helplessness clings to their
+help, whose need depends upon their exhaustless supply. Theirs it is to
+bear the invisible but princely crest, "Ich dien."
+
+Nellie had no time for literary classes. Her music, of which we used to
+predict great things, had resolved itself into lullabies and kindergarten
+ditties for the children. She seldom found an opportunity to visit even
+me. So it was I who went there and saw how her life was literally bound by
+the four walls of that little brown house; yet I never felt any
+inclination to pity her, because she was so contented. I knew of others
+who seemed happier--that is, the word seemed to describe them better--but
+none of them possessed Nellie Mayo's placid content.
+
+Still, I did not like her husband. He was not of Nellie's fine fibre. He
+was dull, while she was delightfully clever. His eyes were rather good,
+but he had a way of throwing expressive glances at me, as he talked upon
+trifling subjects, which disgusted me. I reluctantly made up my mind that
+he considered himself a "lady-killer," but I felt outraged that he should
+waste his ammunition upon me. I tried to be amused by it, when I found
+indignation was useless with him. I used to call him "Simon Tappertit" to
+myself, until I once forgot and referred to him as "Simon" before Nellie,
+when I gave up being amused and let it bore me naturally. I always had
+treated him with unusual consideration for Nellie's sake, and even had
+tried genuinely to admire him because it gave her such pleasure; but when
+I discovered that the jackanapes took it as an evidence that he was
+progressing in my esteem, I did not know whether to laugh or cry with
+vexation.
+
+All at once, without any explanation or preface, Sallie began calling upon
+Mrs. Mayo and sending her flowers from her conservatories. Often when
+Sallie came to see me her coachman had orders to be at Mrs. Mayo's
+disposal, to take the children for a drive, while Sallie and I sat and
+talked about everything except why she had embarked upon this venture. I
+was sure there was something in it which must be kept out of sight,
+because Sallie never would talk about them.
+
+I noticed that whenever Frank was away from home--which grew more and more
+frequent--an invitation was sure to come for the Mayos from Sallie. But
+Nellie never accepted without him, whether from pride or timidity I could
+not then determine, and all Sallie's efforts to persuade her were
+unavailing.
+
+It was such an unusual proceeding in Mrs. Payson Osborne to seek out any
+one that it excited my wonder. But she was not to be balked by anything;
+moreover, I had great faith in her motives, which were sound and good,
+even if her plans of carrying them out inclined to the frivolous.
+
+But all at once her frivolity seemed to reach a climax. She issued
+invitations for a lawn fete, to be followed by a very private, very select
+dinner, after which came the cotillon. She had decorators from New York,
+and otherwise ordered the most extravagant setting for her entertainment.
+This might not seem unusual to every one, but with us, who are accustomed
+to extracting our enjoyment from one party at a time, this seemed rather a
+superb affair. Pet Winterbotham was almost wild with delight.
+
+"Only think," she cried, "she has asked Jack and me to lead the cotillon!
+Isn't that sweet of her? Oh, I do think she is the dearest thing! Though I
+must say I'd rather have been asked to the dinner. That's going to be
+perfectly elegant. I heard it was to be given for somebody, but I don't
+know who it could be. It might be for Frankie Taliaferro. Mrs. Osborne has
+asked her to come up for it."
+
+Pet's remarks rushed on until I soon found myself carried along the tide
+of her enthusiasm, which she assured me was shared by every girl in town.
+
+I shall not attempt to describe Sallie's success. The weather, the people,
+fortune itself, was in her favor, and the whole afternoon was admirable. I
+confess, however, that it was with some slight curiosity that I awaited
+the dinner.
+
+Sallie's cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone with an unusual brilliancy
+as she greeted us, but the proverbial feather would have felled any one of
+her guests when Payson offered his arm to Mrs. Frank Mayo, who rose out of
+a shadowy corner in a high-throated gown and led us to the dining-room. I
+caught Sallie's eye as she laid her hand on Frank Mayo's arm, and she gave
+me a comical look, half imploring, half defiant.
+
+I was guilty of wondering if Sallie had been demented when she planned
+that dinner-table, for this is the way we found ourselves:
+
+Next to Frank Mayo came Alice Asbury, encased in freezing dignity. Brian
+Beck, at his worst, supported her on the other hand. After Brian were
+Louise King and Charlie Hardy, both looking to my practised eyes
+exceedingly stiff and uncomfortable. I had no time to wonder if the blow
+had fallen, in casting a glance at the other guests. Nellie Mayo was
+admirably situated between Charlie Hardy and Payson Osborne, both of whom
+were deference itself to her. The difference in her simple attire from the
+full dress all around her in no wise disturbed her unworldly spirit. She
+looked with quiet admiration at the handsome shoulders of Louise and
+Rachel, evidently never dreaming that the babies' mother might be
+expected to follow their example in dress.
+
+[Illustration: Seating plan.]
+
+Grace Beck, sitting by Norris Whitehouse, would have an excellent
+opportunity of cementing or breaking off the prospective match, which as
+yet was unannounced, between her sister and his nephew. Rachel would be
+polite, but not wildly entertaining, to Asbury; but he could count on me
+to be decent to him, while I snatched crumbs of intellectual comfort from
+Percival on my other hand. But Sallie had placed the funereal Clinton
+Frost between that rattle-pated Frankie Taliaferro and her lively self,
+probably with the laudable intention of seeing whether his face would be
+permanently disfigured by a smile. Nor was the poor wretch out of Brian
+Beck's reach, but was made the objective point of Brian's liveliest
+sallies, the hero of his most piquant and impossible stories, which
+convulsed us until I felt sure that the irritated Mr. Frost must cherish
+a secret but lively desire to punch his head. Possibly Brian was the only
+one who thoroughly enjoyed himself at that ill-starred dinner, for he is
+keen on the scent of a precarious situation which is liable to involve
+everybody in total collapse. In this instance he seemed to snuff the
+battle from afar and stirred up all the slumbering elements of discord
+with unctuous satisfaction; and if it had not been for the wicked twinkle
+in his Irish blue eyes, which none of his victims could withstand, it
+might have resulted seriously. He gayly rallied Charlie Hardy on his
+flirtations; predicted seeing him yet brought up with a round turn in a
+breach-of-promise case; seemed highly edified by Frankie Taliaferro's
+efforts to appear unconcerned at these pleasantries; railed openly at
+Clinton Frost's being so unresponsive to the general mirth around him;
+shivered visibly at that gentleman's icy retorts; playfully called
+attention to his wife's endeavors to frown him into silence; and, in spite
+of Sallie's angry glances, really saved her dinner from proving a dismal
+failure. Indeed, the cases were too real, and too much genuine misery was
+concealed behind impassive faces, not to prove a dangerous situation, the
+tension of which was relieved by Brian's extravagant nonsense. Percival
+and Norris Whitehouse were sincerely amused by the wit in which Brian
+clothed his droll remarks. But the greatest misfortune of the dinner-giver
+was realized in Frank Mayo, the man who thinks he can tell a good story.
+The Mayos were so new to all of us that this peculiarity was not suspected
+until Brian discovered it and dragged it forth. He persuaded Frank to
+talk, listened with absorbing interest to the flattest tales, encouraged
+him if he flagged, and laughed until the tears came if he by chance forgot
+or slurred a point.
+
+However, no one seemed to think that there was anything seriously amiss
+except Sallie, who is a human barometer when she has guests. She knows by
+instinct when they are or are not being entertained. Nor was her tact at
+fault in seating the people, for I was the only one laden with almost
+unbearable knowledge, and I fell asleep that night thinking that possibly
+the situation was not so unusual as it appeared to me. I dare say plenty
+of dinners are given with just as many unsuspected trap-doors to
+sensationalism.
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                          THE PATHOS OF FAITH
+
+     "To him who is shod the whole world is covered with leather."
+
+
+The next afternoon I was resting and thinking over the brilliancy of the
+Payson Osborne entertainment, when Sallie came in, dressed from head to
+foot in black. There was not a suspicion of white at wrist or throat. I
+was too startled to ask a question until her burst of laughter relieved
+me.
+
+"You poor thing!" she cried, "did I frighten you? But I _am_ in mourning;
+yes, truly, for my dinner-party. Ruth, Ruth, what was the matter with it?"
+
+"Why, nothing. It was exquisitely served, and oh, Sallie, your lawn fete
+and the cotillon were beautiful. They were perfect. Truly, you do give the
+most successful entertainments in town."
+
+"Certainly--why shouldn't I," said Sallie sharply, "when I have never done
+anything, _anything_ all my life but go to parties and study how to give
+them? Oh, Ruth, dear, I do get so tired of it all. But," taking on a
+brisker tone, "all the more reason why I should never give such a sad
+affair as that dinner. That dinner, Ruth, was what Brian Beck calls a
+howling failure. Payson never criticises anything that I do, but even he
+came to me quite gingerly this morning, after I had read what the papers
+had to say about it, and said, 'My dear child, what was the matter with
+your tea-party?' Now, let us admit the success of the other two, and weep
+a little in a friendly way over the 'tea-party.'"
+
+"I had a lovely time--" I began, but Sallie interrupted me.
+
+"Hypocrite!" she cried vehemently. "You know you didn't. Your eyes were as
+big as turkey platters with apprehension."
+
+"My dear Sallie," I expostulated.
+
+"Don't you dare put on airs with me, then," she said mutinously. "Now,
+what ailed them all? It couldn't have been the advent of the Mayos. I've
+launched more ticklish craft than they. Nor could it have been that
+abominable Brian Beck, who would spoil Paradise and be the utter ruin of
+a respectable funeral. Every one seemed to conspire to make my dinner a
+failure."
+
+"Oh, Sallie, I think Percival especially exerted himself. He was in his
+most exquisite mood."
+
+"Oh, Percival, of course. He must have suspected that something was going
+wrong. Did you ever notice, when he talks, how Rachel turns her head away?
+But you can see the color creep up into her face. She is too proud and shy
+to let people see how much she cares for him. But when _she_ speaks
+Percival looks at her with all his eyes, and positively leans forward so
+that he shall not miss a word. I love to watch those two. Sometimes when I
+have been with them I feel as if I had been to church."
+
+"Then, too, Payson's manner to Nellie Mayo was the most chivalric thing I
+ever saw. He treated her as if the best in the land were not too good for
+her."
+
+"Nor is it," said Sallie warmly.
+
+"I'm glad you think so. What a sweet, unworldly spirit she has! Almost any
+woman would have been distressed because of her gown; but she was so
+superior to her dress, with that uplifted face of hers, that I felt
+ashamed to think of it myself. You gave her a rare pleasure last night,
+for she never meets clever men and women. The Percivals and Mr. Whitehouse
+delighted her, and you saw how well she sustained her part of the
+conversation. You see she thinks, if she doesn't have time to study. She
+was particularly fortunate in having Payson to take her out, for he has a
+faculty of putting people at their ease. Do you know, Sallie, Payson
+Osborne has come out wonderfully since you married him. He is more
+thoughtful, more considerate, and his manners always have been _so_ good.
+I declare, last night I caught him looking at you in a way which made me
+quite fond of him."
+
+"I'm fond of him myself," said Sallie candidly. "He undoubtedly is a dear
+old thing, and he is tremendously good to me. By the way, did you notice
+how red Frankie Taliaferro's eyes were last night? She had the toothache,
+poor girl. It came on quite suddenly just before dinner, and it alarmed me
+for fear she couldn't appear. Just before dinner I was naming over the way
+the people were to go in, and I said that I had to put engaged people
+together and separate husbands and wives, after the manner of real life,
+and Payson asked if I was sure Louise King and Charlie Hardy were engaged,
+and I said yes, although it never had been announced, and just then
+Frankie burst into tears. It was a suspicious time for crying, especially
+as that egregious flirt had paid her a great deal of attention; but
+Frankie would tell _me_, I am sure, and then she really had been to the
+dentist's that morning. So I gave her something for it which she said
+cured it. I was so vexed at her for making her eyes red, for her blue
+dress brought it out. If she had been crying over the other, she might
+have spared her tears, for I don't believe Charlie and Louise are engaged.
+I think they have quarrelled, for when Charlie offered his arm to Louise,
+she looked up with that way she has of throwing her head back, and I
+declare to you, Ruth, I saw, I positively saw, forked lightnings shoot
+from her eyes. They blazed so I was afraid they would set his tie on fire.
+As for Charlie, he turned first green, then magenta, then a rich and
+lively purple. I give you my word they did not speak to each other during
+that dinner, nor would Louise stay to the cotillon. Charlie danced it with
+Frankie. Nice state of affairs, isn't it?"
+
+I felt myself grow weak. But Sallie proceeded gayly: "Then you know how
+hard I have tried to propitiate those miserable Asburys. I declare, I
+think Alice might meet me half way. Perhaps she didn't like being seated
+between Frank Mayo and Brian Beck, but both she and that awful Frost man
+sat as stiff and unsmiling as if they had swallowed curtain-poles by the
+dozen." Sallie does not mind an extra word or two to strengthen a simile.
+I tried to imagine Alice and Mr. Frost gulping down the articles Sallie
+mentioned, but mine was no match for Sallie's nimble fancy and I gave it
+up. "I do hope that Pet Winterbotham will not marry that man. I should as
+soon see her led to the altar by a satin-lined casket. I had to invite him
+when I found that Frankie could come. Wasn't Brian Beck dreadful, and
+didn't you think you would go to sleep under Frank Mayo's stories? And
+didn't Grace Beck's airs with Mr. Whitehouse amuse you? Oh, she will hold
+that head of hers so high if Pet marries Jack. How bored Asbury looked,
+didn't he? So selfish of him not to pretend to be pleased. Even Rachel
+vexed me by not being nicer to Asbury. I declare, Ruth, I was so irritated
+at the queer way every one acted, I felt as if it would be a relief to
+make faces at them, instead of beaming on them the hospitable beam of a
+hostess. I wonder how they would have liked it."
+
+"They might have considered it rather unconventional perhaps."
+
+Sallie smiled absent-mindedly, pressed her hand to her flushed cheek,
+looked over towards the Mayo house, and then, meeting my inquiring glance,
+dropped her eyes in confusion.
+
+"Well," I said tentatively.
+
+Sallie leaned back in her chair, put her hands behind her head, and closed
+her eyes.
+
+"I wonder," she said dreamily, "why I ever attempt to do things. Why can't
+people let me alone, and why don't I let them alone? Most of all, why do I
+ever try to keep a secret?"
+
+I knew then that she had been rattling on because her mind was full of
+something else. I don't believe she knew half that she had said. Presently
+to my surprise I saw a tear steal down her cheek.
+
+"O Sallie!" I exclaimed, now really worried, "what is it?"
+
+"I'll tell you, Ruth, for you are the only one who seems really to know
+and love that dear little Nellie Mayo and those blessed babies. Ruth,
+there is a Damocles sword hanging over that nest of birds, and it is
+liable to fall at any moment. Oh, it has weighed on my heart like lead
+ever since I discovered the secret. I know you don't like Frank Mayo, but
+you will despise him when I tell you the mischief he is up to, and that
+poor little wife of his trusting him as if he were an archangel. Oh, he
+is common, Ruth, and horrid, and if it is ever found out it will kill
+Nellie. But he is carrying on dreadfully with a soubrette in New York. He
+is wasting his money on her--and you know he has none to spare--and seems
+to be infatuated with her; while she, of course, is only using him to
+advertise herself. In fact, that is how I found it out. Payson is in a
+syndicate which is trying to buy one of those up-town theatres in New York
+and turn it into something else; I forget just what they want to do with
+it, but any way, he came in contact with the manager of the theatre where
+this woman was playing. He gave them a dinner and afterwards they occupied
+his box, and while this woman was on the stage her manager told how some
+man was causing nightly sensations by the flowers he sent her, and he said
+that he--her manager--thought he would have it written up for the papers
+to advertise her before she started out on her tour. He said the man was
+making a fool of himself, but the actress didn't care, and when he pointed
+out the fellow to them, Payson saw to his horror that it was Frank Mayo.
+He didn't say a word before the other gentlemen, but the next day he went
+to the manager and begged him to advertise the woman in some other way. He
+told him who Frank was and all about his poor little wife and the
+children, and the manager, who seems to be a good hearted man, said it was
+a shame and promised not to allow it. He even went so far as to offer to
+speak to the actress herself and request her to refuse to be interviewed
+on the subject. So Payson came home quite relieved. But the next time he
+saw the manager Payson asked him how things were going, and he said worse
+than ever as far as Frank himself was concerned, and he added that when he
+mentioned the subject to the actress she tossed her head and said Mayo
+must take care of himself.
+
+"Then I thought I would do what I could to introduce him into society
+here, for you know he is ambitious in that line, and perhaps I might get
+him away from the creature. So I gave that whole thing yesterday for the
+Mayo family, with what result you know, except that I haven't told you
+that the presumptuous dolt made love mawkishly to me all the evening.
+Yes, actually! Did you ever hear of such impertinence? Oh, the man is
+simply insufferable, Ruth.
+
+"Now, what I am constantly afraid of is that it will get into the papers
+after all. I read them, I fairly study them, so that it shall not escape
+me; but, if it does come out, what shall we do for Nellie? It will break
+her heart."
+
+I looked at Sallie with gnawing conscience that I had ever called her
+lawn fete the climax of frivolity. The dear little soul! who would have
+suspected that she had such a worthy motive for her ball? But, do you
+know, sometimes in fashionable life we catch a glimpse of the
+simple-minded, homely kindliness which we are taught to believe exists
+only among horny-handed farmers, rough miners, and hardy mountaineers.
+
+"Sallie, dear child," I said, "I beg your pardon for not knowing how noble
+you are."
+
+"Noble? I? Sallie Cox? Now, nobody except Payson ever hinted at such a
+thing, and I hushed him up instantly. No, Ruth, it was nothing. I dare say
+Rachel or you would have thought of some grand project which would have
+been effectual, but _I_ couldn't think of anything to do but to tickle his
+vanity by making him the guest of honor at the best affair of the season."
+
+"Indeed, I think neither Rachel nor I could have thought of anything so
+sure to captivate a shallow mortal like Frank Mayo."
+
+"Set a thief to catch a thief," said Sallie merrily. "I'm shallow myself,
+_I_ knew how it would feel to have such a fine thing given for me. My
+dear, if the ball were only fine enough it would cure a broken heart."
+
+"Not if the heart were really broken, Sallie."
+
+"Well, you must admit that it would help _some_," she said whimsically.
+
+And so she went away and left the burden upon me. Then I, too, fell to
+devouring the papers, as I knew Sallie was doing with me. I went more than
+ever to the little brown house which lay in such peril, and I never saw
+Nellie with a paper in her hand that I did not shudder.
+
+At last the thing we so dreaded came to pass. In the evening paper there
+was quite a sensational account of it. Thank Heaven, no name was given;
+but alas, the description of him, of his wife and five little children,
+was unmistakable. I felt as though I had sat still and watched a cat kill
+a bird. It was raining, not hard, but drearily, and the dead leaves
+fluttered against the windows as the chill wind blew them from where they
+clung. I was lonesome, and the autumn evening intensified my feelings. I
+glanced over to where a red glow came from Nellie's windows. I fancied her
+sitting there with the paper in her hand, as she always did in the one
+spare moment of her busy day, with her heart crushed by the news. She
+would be alone, too, for Frank was out of town. Poor child! Poor child! I
+started up and decided to go and see her. If she didn't want me I could
+come back, but what if she did want me and I was not there?
+
+I found her sitting, as I had expected, alone. The paper, with the fatal
+page uppermost, lay in her lap, as if she had read it and laid it down.
+There was only the firelight in the room.
+
+"Come in, dear," she said gladly. "I was just thinking of you and
+wondering if such weather did not make you blue. Sit down here by the
+fire. It was sweet of you to come in the rain."
+
+She searched my distressed face anxiously as she spoke. I made no reply.
+My heart was too full at being comforted when I had come to comfort. As I
+sat on a low stool at her side she seemed to divine my mood, for she drew
+my head against her knee with a mother touch, and threaded my hair with a
+mother hand, and pressed down my eyelids as I have seen her do when she
+puts her baby to sleep. And though she must have felt the tears come, she
+did not appear to know.
+
+"Dear Ruth," she said, "I have been sitting here thinking about you, and
+wondering if you were satisfied, such a loving heart as you have, to face
+the rest of your life without the love you deserve. You won't be vexed
+with me for speaking of it to you, for you know I am so old-fashioned that
+I think love is the only thing in this world worth having. It is all that
+I live for. Of course my children love me, but, until they grow older,
+theirs is only an instinctive love. It isn't like the love of a husband,
+which singles you out of all the other countless women in the world to be
+his and only his forever. There is power enough in that thought to nerve
+the weakest woman to do a giant's task. The mere fact that you are all in
+all, the _only_ woman, to the man you so dearly love, the one person who
+can make his world; when you think that your being away from one meal or
+out of the house when he comes in will make him miss you till his heart
+aches--this will keep down a moan of pain when it is almost beyond
+bearing, for fear it might cause him to suffer with you; it will nerve
+you to stand up and smile into his eyes when you are ready to drop with
+exhaustion. Love, such as a husband's love for his wife, is the most
+precious, the most supporting thing a woman can have. You never hear me
+talk much about my husband, but he is all this and more to me. I cannot
+begin to tell you about it. I read about unhappy marriages--why, I read
+a dreadful thing to-night in the paper, which set me to thinking how safe
+and happy I am, and how thankful I ought to be that I can trust my
+husband so. It was about a man who was unfaithful to his wife, and they
+had five children just as we have. I know such things do occur, but how or
+why is a mystery to me. I hope I am not too hard when I say that in such a
+case it must be the wife's fault. Surely if she had been a good wife, an
+unselfish and loving wife, he could not have been enticed away. Poor
+thing! I wonder how she felt when she heard it. Probably she wouldn't
+believe it. Probably she had too much faith in him. You shake your head.
+Why, Ruth, you dear thing, you don't know anything about it. A wife
+_couldn't_ believe such a thing. Why, I wouldn't believe it if told by an
+angel from heaven. But then my husband is so dear to me. I do sometimes
+wonder if all women care as much for their husbands as I do for mine. Do
+you know, dear, I think about you so much. I know that there have been
+several hearts in which you have reigned, and yet you have not cared. But
+the true love, the right lover, has not come, or you could not have passed
+him by. He is waiting for you; somewhere, somehow, he will come to you, I
+am sure, and you will know then that you have belonged to each other all
+this time; that this love has been coming down the ages from eternity for
+just you two. You will not refuse it then. Why, I could never have refused
+to marry Frank when I found that I was as much to him as he was to me! He
+is so handsome, so good. I shall never cease to thank God that He made him
+turn aside into the quiet places to find me. But, in spite of all this,
+you know I don't think he is perfect. He doesn't care for books as much
+as I wish he did. He has no ear for music, and he cannot tell a story
+straight to save his life, the dear boy! Love does not blind my eyes, but
+this is what it does do. It makes me overlook in him what would annoy me
+in others. When, at that beautiful dinner of Mrs. Osborne's, Frank told
+those stories of his that I've heard for years, I don't think any one
+cared to hear them except Mr. Beck and me. I knew they were not well told,
+but it was my husband who was telling them, and I could listen to his
+voice, even if I couldn't sit next him.
+
+"How the wind blows. Don't you think it has a lonesome sound to-night?
+There isn't a glimmer of light from any of your windows yet, and see what
+a lovely glow this fire casts all through the room. It makes the cold
+walls look warm, and if it makes shadows, it chases them away when it
+blazes its brightest. It is your fault that there is no light in your
+windows, and your fault that you have closed your heart against love. You
+could have the glow that lights my house and my heart if you only would.
+You know, dear, I am not talking to you as a neighbor now or even as a
+friend, but as a woman talks to a woman out of her inmost heart. It is
+only because I love you so and because I have seen you with my babies that
+I know what a home-maker you are. You seem so sad sometimes, and I know
+your heart is wistful if your eyes are not. How can you have the courage
+to shut out love? How can you see the happiness of all your friends and
+not want a share of it yourself? Why do you cry so, my dear? Is there some
+one you love? Has any trouble come between you? No? No? Well, there,
+there! It was selfish of me to show you the way I look at things and to
+try to make you dissatisfied. Never mind. You are stronger than I. I could
+not live without love; I should die. But if you can, it may be that you
+are fulfilling your destiny more nobly than many another who has more of
+what I should choose.
+
+"Oh, must you go? Forgive me if I have said what I should not. Good-night,
+and God bless you, my dear."
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+                       THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE
+
+        "The tallest trees are most in the power of the wind."
+
+
+Last night at the theatre there were theatricals all over the house. My
+eyes followed the play on the stage, but my mind was filled with the farce
+in the next box and with the tragedy in the one opposite.
+
+I was with the Ford-Burkes, and, hearing familiar voices, I pulled aside
+the curtain, and in the next box were the Payson Osbornes, Pet
+Winterbotham, and Jack Whitehouse. Pet thrust her hand over the railing
+and whispered,
+
+"I'm engaged. Put your hand here and feel the size of my ring. You can get
+an idea of it through my glove. I'd take it off and show it to you, only I
+think it would look rather pronounced, don't you?"
+
+"Rather," I assented faintly.
+
+I glanced beyond her into the fresh blue eyes of young Jack Whitehouse,
+and I wondered if the alert, manly young fellow, with his untried but
+inherited capabilities, knew that he had been accepted as a husband
+because his hair curled and he looked "chappie."
+
+"I suppose you have heard the news, haven't you?" she went on.
+
+"Nothing in particular. What news?"
+
+"Look across the house and you will see."
+
+Just entering their box opposite were Louise King and Norris Whitehouse,
+Jack's uncle.
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked, with a wrench at Pet's little hand which made
+her wince.
+
+"It's an engagement. Uncle and nephew engaged the same season. Isn't it
+rich? Think of Louise King being my aunt. She is only twenty-three."
+
+Then they saw us and bowed. I felt faint as my mind adjusted itself to
+this new arrangement. I levelled my glass at them.
+
+Louise, magnificently tall and handsome, looked quite self-contained. She
+is one of the best-bred girls I know, but it required a stronger
+imagination than mine to fathom what mysterious change had transformed
+her from the impulsive, loving creature of Charlie Hardy's story to this
+serene-eyed woman, who had deliberately elected to marry at the funeral
+of her own heart.
+
+As I looked across at her during that long evening, I felt that it was
+impertinent to probe her heart with my wonderings and surmises. I knew
+instinctively just how carefully she was hiding her hurt from all human
+eyes. I knew how her fierce pride was bearing up under the cruelty of it.
+I felt how she had rushed from the humiliation one man had brought her to
+the waiting love of the one who should have been her first choice by the
+divine right of natural selection. This strong man had loved her for
+years, but he would never allow her to imperil either his dignity or her
+own. He was just the man her impulsive, high-strung nature could accept as
+a refuge, beat against and buffet if need be, then learn to appreciate and
+cling to.
+
+I had an impression that he was not totally ignorant of the state of
+affairs. He was older and wiser than she, and capable of the bravery of
+this venture. No, he was not being deceived. I was sure of it. Louise was
+too high minded to attempt it. She would be scornfully honest with him.
+Her scorn would be for herself, not for him, and he had accepted her
+joyfully on these terms. His daring was tempered with prudence, and his
+clear vision doubtless forecast the end. His insight must have shown him
+that, with a girl like Louise, the rebound from the self-disdain to which
+Charlie Hardy's confession must have reduced her would be as intense as
+her humiliation had been, and that her passionate gratitude to the man who
+restored her self-respect would be boundless. Not every man--not even
+every man who loved her--could do this. He must possess strong nerves who
+descends into a volcano. He must have a more unbending will who tames any
+wild thing; but what an intoxicating thrill of pride must come to him who,
+having confidence in his own powers, makes the attempt and succeeds.
+
+Perhaps if Louise had been strong enough to fight this cruel battle out
+with herself as Rachel would have done, and win as Rachel would have won,
+she might have been able to choose differently. She might then, strong in
+her own strength, marry a man of lesser personality, a younger man, and
+they two could have adjusted their lives to each other gradually. Now it
+must be Louise who would be adjusted, and Norris Whitehouse was just the
+man to know the curious fact that the more fiery and impetuous a woman
+is, the more easily, if she is in love, will she mould herself to
+circumstances. The more untamed and unbending she seems, the more helpless
+will she be under the strong excitement of love or grief.
+
+A strong-minded woman is easier to persuade than a weak one. The grander
+the nature the greater its pliability towards truth. The longer I sat and
+gazed into the opposite box the clearer it grew in my mind that the
+suddenness of this venture did not imply rashness, but serene-eyed faith
+only, and such faith would captivate Louise King more than would love. The
+only impossible thing about it to a sceptical Old Maid was that it was
+the man who was proving himself such a hero, and who was upsetting my
+favorite theory that men never understand emotional women. Still, it was
+not difficult to except as unusual a man like Norris Whitehouse, and yet
+have my theory hold good. In imagination I leaped forward to the peaceful
+outcome of this turbulent beginning, and overlooked the way which led to
+it. I found myself hoping, with painful intensity, that this venture in
+which Norris Whitehouse and I had embarked would prove successful. I had
+known and loved Louise King all her life. I had loved her dear mother
+before her, and the beautiful daughterhood of this girl had always touched
+me as the highest and sweetest type I ever had known. I did not want to be
+the one to bring her face to face with her first great sorrow, although I
+dared not interfere to less purpose. For
+
+    "'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
+       And matter enough to save one's own.
+     Yet think of my friend and the burning coals
+       We played with for bits of stone."
+
+They could not know that I had had anything to do with it; yet, if ill
+came of it, I should blame myself all the rest of my life.
+
+Not long afterwards they were married very quietly and went away for a few
+weeks. When they returned I sought Louise with eagerness, and found that
+my fears were not groundless. I tried to think what to do. If it would
+have eased matters, I would willingly have gone to her and confessed that
+I instigated Charlie Hardy's confession. But I felt that the root of the
+matter lay deeper than that, so I said nothing that could be construed
+into an unwelcome knowledge of her affairs.
+
+In the short time which elapsed between their return and the date set for
+their departure for Europe, where they were to stay a year, I saw Louise
+continually. She sought me as if she liked to be with me, although her
+eyes never lost the anxious, hunted expression which you sometimes see in
+the eyes of some trapped wild creature.
+
+It was a raw morning, with a chill wind blowing, when their steamer was to
+sail. Mr. Whitehouse, thinking I might have some last private word to say
+to Louise, skilfully detached everybody else and strolled with them beyond
+earshot, but where his eyes could continually rest upon his wife's face.
+
+As Louise and I walked up and down I took in mine the small hand which
+emerged from the great fur cuff of her boat cloak, and gradually its
+rigidity relaxed under my friendly pressure. I remembered, as I
+occasionally tightened my grasp upon it, that my dear little baby sister
+Lois, who was taken away from us before she outgrew her babyhood, used to
+squeeze my hand in this fashion, and when I asked her what it meant, she
+invariably said, "It means dat it loves you." I wondered if the same
+inarticulate language could be conveyed to poor, suffering Louise.
+Suddenly she turned to me and said,
+
+"You have thrown something gentle, a softness around me this morning. I
+can feel it. What is it, Ruth?"
+
+"I don't know, dear, unless it is my love for you."
+
+"It is something more. Your eyes look into mine as if you knew all about
+it and wished to comfort me."
+
+As I made no answer, she turned and looked down at me from her superb
+height.
+
+"Tell me," she said quite gently; "I shall not be angry. Tell me, _do_ you
+know?"
+
+"Yes, Louise, I know."
+
+She hesitated a moment as if she really had not believed it. Then she said
+slowly,
+
+"If any other person on earth except you had told me that, I should die. I
+could not live in the knowledge. But you--well, your pity is not an insult
+somehow."
+
+"Because it is not pity, Louise," I said steadily. "There is a difference
+between pity and sympathy. One is thrown at you--the other walks with
+you."
+
+She only pressed my hand gratefully. Suddenly she turned and said
+impulsively,
+
+"Then you must know how utterly wretched I am."
+
+Glancing over her shoulder I could see the eyes of her husband fastened
+upon her with an expression which stirred me to put forth my best
+efforts.
+
+Then it came over me how pent-up all this intensity of feeling must be. I
+realized how impossible it would seem to her to speak of it. Taking my
+life in my hand--for I was mortally afraid--I rushed in, after the manner
+of my kind, where angels fear to tread.
+
+"Did you love him then so much?"
+
+The pupils of her eyes enlarged until they were all black with excitement.
+She caught both my hands in hers.
+
+"Only God Himself knows how I loved him," she whispered.
+
+I knew then that all Charlie had said was true, and, weak coward that I
+was, if I could have undone the past, I would have given him back to her.
+I was borne away by a glimpse of such love. O Charlie Hardy! And you cast
+this from you for a pair of blue eyes!
+
+"How came you to love such a weak man?" I asked tremblingly.
+
+"That is what I want to know. How could I? How can girls of my sort love
+so hopelessly beneath us? I've thought and wondered over that question
+until my brain has almost turned, and the only consolation I find is that
+I am not the only one. Other women, cleverer than I, have loved the most
+contemptible of men and have been deceived just as I was. Oh, if he or I
+had only died before I discovered the truth! If I could have mourned him
+honorably and felt that my grief was dignified! But I won't allow myself
+to grieve over him. I tell myself that I am well out of it and that I
+ought to be glad. But instead of gladness there is a dull, miserable ache
+in my heart, which I feel even in my sleep. Not for him; I don't mourn for
+him, but for myself--for my fallen idols and my shattered ideals. What
+will such men have to answer for? I doubt if I ever can believe in
+anything human again."
+
+"Anything _human_," I repeated gladly.
+
+Louise looked down.
+
+"He was not omnipotent," she said huskily. "He ruled my heart only, not
+my soul."
+
+"I suppose you have tried to love your husband?" I said.
+
+"Tried? Oh, Ruth, I have tried so hard! He is so good to me. He knows
+everything. Of course I told him. That was why we were married so
+suddenly. He wished it and urged such excellent reasons, and I had so much
+respect for him and his wisdom in what is best, that I married him. I
+thought I could love him. I always thought that if I didn't love--the
+other one--I should love Norris; but I can't. I believe my power of love
+is gone forever. I feel sometimes as if the best part of me had been
+killed--not died of its own accord, but as if it had been murdered."
+
+"Poor child!" I said. "Why don't you talk this over with your husband?"
+
+"Oh, Ruth, how could I?"
+
+"Well, may I talk to you? Will it hurt you?"
+
+"Nothing that you would say can hurt me, dear."
+
+"Then let me say just this. You have been trying to do in weeks what
+nature would take years to do. In real life you cannot lose your love and
+heal your worse than widowed heart and love anew as you would in private
+theatricals. You have outraged your own delicate sensibilities, but not
+with your husband's consent. He does not want you to try to love him. No
+good man does. He wants you to love him because you can't help
+yourself--because it seems to your heart to be the only natural thing to
+do. 'When the song's gone out of your life, you can't start another while
+it's a-ringing in your ears. It's best to have a bit o' silence, and out
+of that maybe a psalm'll come by and by.'"
+
+"Oh, Ruth, dear Ruth, say that again," she cried, turning towards me with
+tears in her lovely eyes. I repeated it.
+
+"How restful to dare to take 'a bit o' silence'!"
+
+"No one can prevent you doing so but yourself. Mr. Whitehouse married you
+to give you just that, confident that he loved you so much that the psalm
+would come by and by."
+
+"I believe he did," said Louise gently, with color rising in her cheeks.
+
+"Another thing. Don't try not to grieve. Don't repress yourself. It is
+right that you should mourn over your lost ideals. Nothing on earth
+brings more poignant grief than that. You will never get them back. Do not
+expect what is impossible. They were false ideals, none the less beautiful
+and dear to you for being that, but truly they were distorted. You will
+see this some time. You have begun to see it now. You realize that this
+man was in no way what you thought him. You had idealized him, had almost
+crowned him. Now you can't help trying to invest Mr. Whitehouse with the
+same unnamable, invisible qualities. But no man has them. Your husband is
+a thousand times more worthy than the other, yet even he does not deserve
+worship. Let the man do the crowning if you can, although a woman of your
+temperament would find even that difficult--that which the most inane of
+women could accept with calmness and a smile. You have the magnificent
+humility of the truly great. Still it is not appreciated in this world.
+Try resting for a while and let your husband love you."
+
+I knew that I was saying, though perhaps in a different way, things which
+Norris Whitehouse had urged upon her. Not that she said so. She would
+have regarded that as sacrilege. But it was a look, a little trembling
+smile, which betrayed the ingenuous young creature to me. I felt that I
+was in the presence of a nature very fair and exquisitely pure. It was a
+sacred feeling. I almost felt as if I ought not to read the signs in her
+face, because she had no idea that they were there.
+
+"I have such horrible doubts," she said suddenly with suppressed
+bitterness. "I do not belittle my love. I know that I loved him with all
+my heart and soul, and that I gave him more than most women would have
+done, because love means infinitely more to me than it does to them. I
+knew all the time that I loved him more than he loved me, but I did not
+care, for I believed, blind as I was, that we loved each other all we were
+capable of doing, and if I had more love to give it was only because I was
+richer than he, and I meant to make him the greater by my treasure. Now I
+feel that both I and my love have been wasted. Oh, it was a cruel thing,
+Ruth. I feel so poor, so poor."
+
+"Louise, you think, but you do not think rightly. _Are_ you poorer for
+having loved him? What is his unworth compared with your worth? Isn't your
+love sweeter and truer for having grown and expanded? No love was ever
+wasted. It enriches the giver involuntarily. You are a sweeter, better
+woman than before you loved, unless you made the mistake of small natures
+and let it embitter you. You have no right to feel that it has been
+wasted."
+
+"Do you think so?" she said doubtfully. "That is an uplifting thought."
+Then she added in a low voice, "There is one thing more. It is very
+unworthy, I am afraid, but it is a canker that is eating my heart out. And
+that is the mortification of it. Can you picture the thing to yourself?
+Can you form any idea of how I felt? It grows worse the more I think of
+it."
+
+"I know, I know. But, dear child, there is where I am powerless to help
+you. If I were in your place I think I should feel just as you do. It was
+a cruel thing. I wonder that you bore it as well as you did."
+
+"What! Should _you_ feel that way? Then you do not blame me?"
+
+"Why mention blame in connection with yourself? You are singularly free
+from it. But did you ever consider what an honor the love of such a man
+as your husband is? Do you know how he is admired by great men? Do you
+realize how he must love you, and what magnificent faith he must have to
+wish to marry a young girl like you who admits that she does not love him?
+If you never do anything else in this world except to deserve the faith he
+has in you, you will live a worthy life."
+
+We were standing still now, and Louise was looking at her husband at a
+distance with a look in her eyes which was good to see.
+
+"You never can love him as you loved the other one. A first love never
+comes again. Would you want it to? When you love your husband, as he and
+I both know that you will do some time--perhaps not soon, but he is very
+patient--still, I say, when you love him you will love him in a gentler,
+truer way."
+
+"Can you tell me why such a bitter experience should have been sent to me
+so early in life?"
+
+"To save you pain later and to make of you what you were planned to be."
+
+Tears rolled down her cheeks and she bent to kiss me, for the last mail
+had been put aboard and we had only a moment more.
+
+What she whispered in my ear I shall never tell to any one, but it will
+sweeten my whole life.
+
+As we went towards Mr. Whitehouse Louise involuntarily quickened her pace
+a little and held out her hand to him with a smile. It was good to see his
+face change color and to view the quiet delight with which he received
+her.
+
+Then there were good-byes and hurried steps and a great deal of shouting
+and hauling of ropes, and there were waving of hands and a tossing of
+roses from the decks above and a few furtive tears and many heart-aches,
+and then--the great steamer had sailed.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+                IN WHICH I WILLINGLY TURN MY FACE WESTWARD
+
+                "Grow old along with me.
+                 The best is yet to be,
+         The last of life, for which the first was made.
+                 Our times are in His hand
+                 Who saith, 'A whole I planned,
+         Youth shows but half; trust God, see all, nor be afraid.'"
+
+
+The years cannot go on without destroying the old landmarks, and I am so
+old-fashioned that change of any kind saddens me. People move away,
+strangers take their houses, the girls marry, children grow up, and
+everything is so mutable that sometimes my cheerfulness has a haze to it.
+
+I am in a mood of retrospection to-night. I am living over the past and
+knitting up the ravelled ends.
+
+Dear Rachel! I am thankful that she and Percival continue so happy. It is
+wonderful how every one recognizes and speaks of the completeness of
+these two. They do not parade their affection. They seem rather to try to
+hide it even from me, as if it were almost too sacred for even my kindly
+eyes. It is in the atmosphere, and, though they go their separate ways,
+they are more thoroughly together than any other married people I know.
+
+Both Percival and Rachel are becoming very generally recognized now.
+People are discovering how wonderfully clever their work is, and they
+share themselves with the public, although it is a sacrifice every time
+they do so. Rachel's rather turbulent cleverness has softened down. She
+says it is because it is "billowed in another greater and gentler sort."
+She looks at me rather wistfully sometimes. I know what she thinks, but
+she does not bore me with questions. I wonder if she thinks I regret
+anything. Unless I consider that the Percivals have redeemed the record I
+am keeping, there is nothing especially tempting in the marriages I am
+watching. I cannot think that they are any happier than I am.
+
+Sallie Cox seems contented most of the time. She has a magnificent
+establishment, handsomer than all the rest of the girls' put together. Her
+husband "doesn't bother" her, she says, and the Osbornes are very popular.
+
+"I'm glad I'm shallow," she said to me once. "Shallow hearts do not ache
+long. If I had a deep nature I should go mad or turn into a saint. As it
+is, I wear the scars."
+
+Once, when I went with her to Rachel's, she sat and looked around the
+simple, inexpensive house, with the walls all lined with books and no room
+too good to live in every day, and she said,
+
+"This is the prettiest home I ever was in in my life, and there is not a
+lace curtain in the house!"
+
+We laughed--everybody laughs at Sallie--and Rachel said gently,
+
+"We don't need them."
+
+Sallie looked up quickly and took in the full significance of the words,
+as she answered in the same tone,
+
+"No, you do not, but I do." And each woman had told her heart history.
+Now, Rachel must know almost as much about Sallie as I do; but she never
+will know all.
+
+Sallie said she went home and hated every room in her house separately and
+specifically; then she had a good cry over "the perfectness of the
+Percivals," and issued invitations to a masked ball.
+
+"That ball was full of significance, Ruth," she told me afterwards with
+her most whimsically knowing look. "It was bristling with it. But nobody
+thought of it except a certain little goose I know named Sara Cox
+Osborne."
+
+Jack Whitehouse and Pet Winterbotham are married. They had the most
+beautiful wedding I ever saw; but it was like watching the babes in the
+wood, for they are _such_ a young-looking pair.
+
+I understand better now what Pet meant when she talked about Jack's
+appearance so much. I think he expressed to her the idea of perpetual
+youth and eternal spring-time. To me, too, it seems as if he ought always
+to be yachting in blue and white, or lying at full length on the grass at
+some girl's feet. And Pet herself makes an admirable companion-piece.
+When I see her in a misty white ball-dress, with one man bringing her an
+ice and another holding her flowers and a third bearing her filmy wraps, I
+feel that things are quite as they should be. Some people seem to be born
+for fair weather and smooth sailing.
+
+It is too soon to judge them finally. Norris Whitehouse's nephew will
+outgrow the ball-room, and Pet will find in Louise an incentive to grow
+womanly.
+
+The Asburys have built a fine house since Alice's father died, and go
+about a great deal, but seldom together. Asbury lives at the club, and
+Alice has her mother with her. Alice has embraced Theosophy and spells her
+name "Alys." She always is interested in something new and advanced, and
+whenever I meet her I am prepared to go into ecstasies over a plan to save
+men's souls by electricity, or something equally speedy in the moral line.
+She is daft on spiritual rapid transit.
+
+She does these things because she is a disappointed, clever, ambitious
+woman, who would have made a noble character if she had been surrounded
+by right influences.
+
+What would have been the result if Alice had taken as her creed: "The
+situation that has not its duty, its ideals, was never yet occupied by
+man. Yes, here in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual,
+wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal; work it out
+therefrom, and working, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself; thy
+condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of; what
+matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou give
+it be heroic, be poetic? Oh, thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the
+Actual and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and
+create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee,
+'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see"?
+
+Ah, well, she could not. She still is crying to the gods and spelling her
+name "Alys." Her cleverness must have an outlet, and, with worse than no
+husband to lavish it upon, she scatters it to the four winds of heaven
+and gets herself talked about as "queer."
+
+May Brandt has bitten into her apples of Sodom, and the taste of ashes is
+bitter indeed to her. She knows now that Brandt never loved her, and did
+love Alice. I do not know whether she thinks he still cares for Alice or
+not. May never had much beauty to lose, but she looks worn and unhappy,
+and watches Alice with a degree of feeling which would appear vulgar to me
+if I did not know just how miserable she is. She is hopelessly plain now,
+and Alice is still like a tall, stately lily. Brandt devours her with his
+eyes, but Alice makes him keep his distance.
+
+Sallie Cox has been diplomatic and harmless enough to make Alice forgive
+her, and they are quite good friends; but Alice is magnificent in her
+scorn of Brandt's wife, who almost cowers in her presence.
+
+Poor May! I wish I could take that look of suffering from her little
+pinched, three-cornered face for just one hour. But how could I? How could
+anybody who knew all about it?
+
+She does not understand Alice in all her moods and vagaries, and Alice
+does not condescend to explain herself even to her friends. I do not
+believe that Alice and Brandt have ever spoken on the subject which
+occupies three minds whenever they two are thrown together. Yet I imagine
+it would be a relief to May if she were told that. However, she is
+scarcely noble enough to believe it, even if Alice herself should tell
+her. But Alice never will. She never gives it a thought. Brandt, too, has
+honor, though, even if he had not, Alice would have it for him and forbid
+a word.
+
+It is a fortunate thing for some people's chances for a future life that
+there are a reasonable number of consciences distributed through the
+world, although it would be an Old Maid's suggestion that sometimes they
+be allowed to drive instead of being used as a liveried tiger--for
+ornament and always behind. It is a great pity that people who are
+supplied with them--and well-cultivated consciences too--have not the
+courage to live up to them, but allow themselves to be gently and feebly
+miserable all their lives.
+
+Now, Charlie Hardy has periods of being the most miserable man I ever
+knew. His last interview with Louise must have been as serious a thing as
+he ever experienced. He has married Frankie Taliaferro, and she makes the
+sweetest little kitten of a wife you ever saw. In Louise he would have
+been protected by a coat of mail. In Frankie he finds it turned into a
+pale-blue eider-down quilt, which suits his temperament much better.
+
+Louise Whitehouse is coming home soon. Her year abroad has lengthened into
+several years, and they have been the most beautiful of her life, she
+writes. "Living with a song in one's life may be the sweetest while it
+lasts and before one thinks; but to live by a psalm is to find life
+infinitely more beautiful and worthier. I never can be thankful enough
+that my life was taken out of my hands at the time when I clung to it most
+blindly, and ordered anew by One stronger and wiser than I."
+
+Tears come to my eyes whenever I think of this girl. I do not quite know
+why, unless it is that there always is something sad in watching the
+tempering of a bright young enthusiasm, even though it becomes more useful
+than when so sparkling and high-strung.
+
+I have been at great pains to have Charlie Hardy realize how happy Louise
+is, but his conscience still troubles him at times. He says he knows he
+did the right thing for every one concerned, but he dislikes the idea of
+himself in so disagreeable a role; and Louise's opinion of him now, after
+the one she did have, is a constant humiliation to him. Women always have
+admired him, and he objects very strongly to any exception to the rule. I
+think he misses the mental ozone which he found in Louise. I often wonder
+if men who have loved superior women and married average ones do not have
+occasional wonderings and yearnings over lost "might have beens."
+
+The Mayos still live in the brown house, which has been enlarged and
+greatly beautified recently. I have an enthusiastic friendship with the
+children, who are growing into slim slips of girls and sturdy, clear-eyed
+boys, and their house is still a home. Frank's admiration for soubrettes
+died a sudden and violent death at the masked notoriety of his initial
+escapade, and for a time he was shocked into better behavior. We hear odd
+rumors floating around, however, of whose truth we never can be sure, but
+which we shake our heads over, after the fashion of those whose confidence
+has been caught napping once. We never knew whether Nellie discovered the
+truth or not. If Frank denied it, it would not affect matters with her if
+the world rang with it. Her idolatry has a certain blind stubbornness in
+it which I should not care to beat against.
+
+Bronson does not stand as straight as he did when I first knew him. Rachel
+says he has "a scholarly stoop." But she knows, and I know, that something
+besides law-books and parchment has taken the elasticity out of his step.
+
+Many years have gone by since I became an Old Maid. I want to call my
+Alter Ego's attention to this fact gently but firmly, because I have an
+idea that she still considers herself "only thirty," and that she thinks
+she has just begun to be an Old Maid. Whereas she is old and so am I. I
+do not mind it at all. Neither does she; it is only that she had not
+realized it. We have so much to think about more important than our stupid
+ages. People have grown used to seeing us about, and we like the same
+things, and keep going at about the same pace and in the same road, and I
+think we have come to be an Institution.
+
+I have no worries which I do not borrow from my married friends. I keep up
+with the fashions; my clothes fit me; my fingers still come to the ends of
+my gloves; I feel no leaning towards all-over cloth shoes; I have not gone
+permanently into bonnets. I have tried to be a pleasant Old Maid, and my
+reward is that my friends make me feel as if they liked to have me about.
+I am not made to feel that I am _passe_. One's clothes and one's feelings
+are all that ever make one _passe_.
+
+Nevertheless, I have turned my face resolutely towards the setting sun. I
+am resting now. I have given up struggling against the inevitable. That is
+a privilege and an attribute of youth. I feel as though I were only
+beginning to live, now that I have passed through the period of turmoil
+and come out from the rapids into gently gliding water. There is so much
+in life which we could not see at the beginning, but which grows with our
+growth and bears us company in the richness of evening-tide. I have
+learned to love my life and to cultivate it. Who knows what is in her life
+until she has tended it and made it know that she expects something from
+it in return for all her aspirations and endeavors? Even my wasted efforts
+are dear to me.
+
+    "'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
+     And ask them what report they bore to Heaven,
+     And how they might have borne more welcome news."
+
+Yet there is a sadness in looking back. I see the many lost opportunities
+lifting to me their wistful faces, and dumbly pleading with me to accept
+them and their promises; yet I carelessly passed them by. I see worse. I
+see the rents in the hedge, where I forced my wilful way into forbidden
+fields, and only regained my path after weary wandering, brier-torn, and
+none the better for my folly. Lost faces come before me which I might have
+gladdened oftener. Voices sound in my ear whose tones I might have made
+happier if I would. Withheld sympathy rises up before me deploring its
+wasted treasure. How can any one be happy in looking back? The only
+pleasure in looking forward is in hope. Yet now both grief and joy are
+tempered with a softness which enfolds my fretted spirit gratefully.
+
+              "Time has laid his hand
+    Upon my heart gently; not smiting it,
+    But as a harper lays his open palm
+    Upon his harp to deaden its vibrations."
+
+And so I am looking forward to-night to an old age more peaceful, less
+turbulent, than my youth has been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life
+holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise
+comprehend. Possibly this is one reason why youth is so anxious to
+concentrate enjoyment. But I am tired of concentration. There is a wear
+and tear about it which precludes the possibility of pleasure. I want to
+take the rest of my life gently, and by redoubled tenderness repay it for
+rude handling in my youth--that youth which lies very far away from me
+to-night and is wrapped in a rainbow mist.
+
+
+                                  THE END
+
+
+
+
+                                LOVE-LETTERS
+                                    OF A
+                               WORLDLY WOMAN.
+
+
+By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD, Author of "Aunt Anne," "Mrs. Keith's Crime," etc.
+16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $1 25.
+
+This volume contains three brilliant love-stories well worth reading....
+The letters are original and audacious, and are full of a certain
+intellectual "abandon" which is sure to charm the cultivated reader....
+We trust that Mrs. W. K. Clifford will give us more fiction in this
+delicately humorous, subtle, and analytic vein.--_Literary World_, Boston.
+
+Mrs. Clifford's literary style is excellent, and the love-letters always
+have their special interest.--_N.Y. Times._
+
+There is abundant cleverness in it. The situations are presented with
+skill and force, and the letters are written with great dramatic propriety
+and much humor.--_St. James's Gazette_, London.
+
+In short analytical stories of this kind Mrs. Clifford has come to take a
+unique position in England. In the delicate, ingenious, forcible use of
+language, to express the results of an unusual range of observation, she
+stands to our literature as De Maupassant and Bourget stand to the
+literature of France.--_Black and White_, London.
+
+The study of character is so acute, the analysis of motives and conduct so
+skilful, and, withal, the wit and satire so keen, that the reader does not
+tire.--_Christian Intelligencer_, N.Y.
+
+                           *       *       *
+
+_Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York._
+
+_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the
+United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+
+
+                             UNHAPPY LOVES
+                                  OF
+                             MEN OF GENIUS.
+
+
+By THOMAS HITCHCOCK. With Twelve Portraits.
+16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
+
+A fascinating book. So taking are its rapidly interchanging lights and
+shadows that one reads it from beginning to end without any thought of
+possible intrusion.--_Observer_, N.Y.
+
+The simple and perspicuous style in which Mr. Hitchcock tells these
+stories of unhappy loves is not less admirable than the learning and the
+extensive reading and investigation which have enabled him to gather the
+facts presented in a manner so engaging. His volume is an important
+contribution to literature, and it is of universal interest.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+The stories are concisely and sympathetically told, and the book presents
+in small compass what, in lieu of it, must be sought through many
+volumes.--_Dial_, Chicago.
+
+A very interesting little book.... The studies are carefully and aptly
+made, and add something to one's sense of personal acquaintanceship with
+those men and women who were before not strangers.--_Evangelist_, N.Y.
+
+                           *       *       *
+
+_Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York._
+
+_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the
+United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Love Affairs of an Old Maid, by Lilian Bell
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID ***
+
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